Category Archives: Background on Tantra

18 Amazing Benefits of Yoga, According to Science

Yoga is becoming more mainstream in western cultures as those who practice it realize the numerous physical, mental, and emotional benefits that come with the ancient art.

Science has proven that yoga can have a transformative effect on the body, resulting in everything from lowered blood pressure to disease prevention. Here are some of the many health benefits of yoga, as proven by science.

1. Regular Yoga Practice Relieves Stress and Anxiety

Almost every benefit that comes from regularly practicing yoga stems from the activity’s proven stress-reducing properties.

Stress has become the norm in our everyday society. With high-pressure careers, children’s demanding schedules, and little time to focus on self-care, more adults than ever are experiencing dangerously high levels of stress.

Those who experience frequent stress and anxiety are at a higher risk for clinical depression, high blood pressure, chronic disease, insomnia, and a host of other problems. When the body becomes regularly anxious or stressed, it may never get the signal to return to normal functioning.

This can lead to a prolonged ‘fight or flight’ response that is incredibly draining on the body and the mind.

Preliminary research shows that practicing yoga can have the same stress-reducing effects as exercise and relaxation techniques, which makes sense because it is essentially the combination of the two.

The controlled breathing that is inherent in practicing yoga is probably the biggest factor in reducing stress. When focused on breathing, participants have little room to engage in irrational fear, worry, or other obsessive thoughts, many of which are contributing to their stress levels.

Yoga also helps increase mindfulness and the focus on gratitude, both of which help to ease anxiety.

When we take the time to practice yoga, we are taking time to care for ourselves. This has taken a back seat in our current culture, and yoga can teach us to get back to basics.

Focusing just 20 to 30 minutes a day on the self-healing practice of yoga can then lead to other beneficial activities. It can be a gateway to a more calm, focused life.

Bottom Line: Yoga can help reduce stress and anxiety by focusing on breathing and increasing mindfulness and focus on gratitude.

2. Practicing Yoga Improves Cardiovascular Health

Heart health is crucial to our overall wellness. Hypertension and coronary blockage leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths every year.

Relaxation is incredibly helpful when it comes to heart health as it relaxes the blood vessels and reduces blood pressure while increasing blood flow to the heart. Because of its combination of breathing, meditation, and slow controlled movement, yoga is one of the most relaxing exercises on the planet.

Yoga, especially the more energetic forms, also increases the heart rate. This makes it as beneficial to your heart as any other form of exercise. In fact, yoga may actually lower the risk of heart disease as much as traditional exercise such as brisk walking.

Those who are interested in the cardio benefits of yoga should try out the more active forms such as ashtanga yoga, which provide more of a bump in heart rate than other forms. They might also consider pairing a vigorous form of yoga in the morning with a relaxing form in the evening to provide more stress-reducing and sleep benefits.

Individuals who have suffered a heart attack or are recovering from other heart-related issues also benefit from yoga. Because they are unable to perform more strenuous exercises such as jogging or bicycling, the low-key and less strenuous poses of yoga give them the exercise they need without taxing their already strained heart muscle.

In addition, those who have suffered a cardiac event also benefit from the stress-reducing effects of yoga. Having a life-threatening heart attack or stroke can induce acute emotional stress, which continues to have a negative effect on the heart even after the event is over.

Those who have heart-related illnesses often have to face the fact that they have a life-altering condition. This can often cause grief or depression, both of which are proven to be eased by yoga.

Bottom Line: Yoga improves cardiovascular health by lowering blood pressure, offering relaxation benefits, and increasing blood flow to the heart. It’s also beneficial for those recovering from a heart attack.

3. Yoga Strengthens Brain Activity

As we age, our brains change. Certain parts, such as the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, shrink. Because these areas are crucial to our learning, memory, planning and other mental activities,

This can lead to frustrating memory lapses, inability to focus, and a struggle to retain new information. In extreme cases, in can even lead to neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s or dementia.

Not surprisingly, yoga promotes a more focused, calmer mind through its controlled breathing and focus on relaxation. What may come as a surprise, though, is that yoga can actually change the physical makeup of your brain matter.

Using MRI scans, scientists have detected more cells in certain brain areas of those who practiced yoga regularly. Yoga practitioners had larger brain volume in their somatosensory cortex, visual cortex, hippocampus, precuneus and posterior cingulate cortex. These areas are in charge of visualization, concept of self, and directing attention.

Scientists attribute these benefits to the focused breathing in yoga, which maximizes oxygenation and blood flow to the brain. These benefits also led to fewer depressive symptoms and increased memory performance in practitioners.

The happier and more positive thoughts that flow from yoga can also help change the chemical composition of the brain and ‘rewire’ it to focus more on positive thoughts.

When we break the habit of reacting to stressful events with anxiety and negative thoughts, which yoga helps us do, we encourage the mind to embrace more beneficial thinking. This helps us embrace the present moment and let go of harmful anxiety.

Bottom Line: Yoga helps increase brain matter in various areas of the brain, leading to better memory, less depression and more focus. It also helps rewire the brain for positivity and promotes a calm mind.

4. Practicing Yoga Can Lower the Risk of Cancer

Cancer remains one of the leading causes of death in the United States. In fact, one of four deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to some form of cancer.

Practicing yoga may prevent the genetic mutation from expressing in those who have a family history of cancer. This means that it can have powerful cancer prevention properties. It can also help reduce fat stores in the body, which reduces the likelihood of cancer developing and spreading.

Chronic stress, which yoga helps to reduce, weakens your immune system and leaves you more susceptible to diseases like cancer. It can also enable cancer cells to grow and spread as it increases negative hormones and certain growth factors.

The stress-busting quality of yoga can boost your immune system and regulate hormones, both important cancer-fighting tools.

In addition to cancer prevention, a regular yoga practice with the soothing music from yoga DVDs can also help those who are battling cancer by lowering inflammation, boosting energy, and lifting the mood. One study showed that regularly practicing yoga for three months was effective in improving thenegative moods of those undergoing treatment for breast cancer.

Cancer treatments can also cause fatigue and zap strength in those undergoing them. Yoga has proven beneficial in combating these symptoms and can improve range of motion in patients and help them stay limber and active.

Bottom Line: Yoga can help prevent cancer by reducing fat stores and preventing genetic mutation expression. It can also assist those undergoing cancer treatments by keeping them limber and boosting energy.

5. The Deep Breathing and Poses of Yoga Improve Digestion

Devotees of yoga believe that all health begins in the gut. If we are digesting food, air, water, and energy properly, every other part of the body and mind suffer.

Yoga improves our body’s internal rhythms, which assist in how we digest and detoxify. Even if you don’t currently suffer from any outward signs of impaired digestion, increasing our body’s ability to remove toxins is extremely beneficial.

Many people suffer from poor digestion and constipation. Not only is it uncomfortable, but it can also lead to colon cancer and other diseases.

Still others have developed chronic digestion disorders, such as irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease. These disorders can have a serious impact on our quality of life.

Relying on laxatives or other interventions is not a good way to combat digestive issues, and many find that a high fiber diet is not enough to resolve their issues. That’s where yoga can come in handy.

Deep breathing, the cornerstone of all yoga practices, is like a mild massage for the digestive tract. Breathing brings life force into the body, and helps cleanse it of dangerous toxins.

There are also a number of different poses, such as the peacock and nauli, that are designed specifically to get waste moving through and out of your body. Many of these are best done in the morning on an empty stomach and after a glass of warm water with lemon.

In addition to being helpful for improved digestion on its own, the practice of yoga also encourages individuals to take care of themselves with a healthier diet, more rest, and fewer processed foods and beverages.

The increase in self-care helps not only with digestion, but with feeling good as a whole.

6. Those Who Practice Yoga Are More Aware of What’s Going on in Their Bodies

The term ‘body awareness’ can take many forms, each of which can be enhanced by the practice of yoga.

As we grow into adults, most of us start losing touch with our bodies as matters of the mind take over. We focus so much on our thoughts and feelings, we forget about the mind-body connection and how powerful it is.

This can lead to a reduction in the enjoyment of simple pleasures such as the feel of the sun on our face, or the warm breeze across our skin.

It can also lead to a disconnection between ourselves and our bodies. As we age, this disconnection becomes more pronounced, which is why we often hear of seniors experiencing more falls and accidents than their younger counterparts.

When we’re aware of and connected to our bodies as we step into our yoga pants, we’re able to better enjoy the present moment and understand what impact it has on us both physically and mentally.

Yoga brings body awareness to the forefront. Each pose is focused on one or more body parts and as we breathe in and out, we are only only aware of that breath but also of the part of the body we are currently stretching.

Yoga is also based on being aware of what your body is and is not capable of. Because no pose should be forced, those who are practicing yoga must listen to their body and make adjustments based on what it is telling them.

Bottom Line: Yoga helps increase the mind-body connection. This enhances enjoyment of the present, and also encourages us to be more in tune with how our bodies move.

Diabetes is an epidemic that is becoming quite common in the United States. A condition that is triggered by high blood sugar, either due to lack of insulin production in the body or the body’s lack of response to insulin, diabetes can lead to a dependence on medication, amputations, or even death.

Type 1 diabetes tends to develop in childhood or early adulthood and is usually genetic while type 2 diabetes usually develops in adulthood and is often a product of an unhealthy lifestyle.

Along with lowering blood pressure and keeping weight in check, yoga helps with diabetes by reducing the levels of sugar in the blood, all of which help slow the rate of progression and lessen the severity of complications.

Though it’s a more gentle form of exercise than most people are used to, yoga still provides a workout. The boost in heart rate experienced by yoga practitioners can improve glucose metabolism and increase insulin sensitivity, both beneficial to diabetes sufferers.

Cravings for sweets is a common symptom of diabetes, and the ensuing consumption of sweets only aggravates the problem. Deep breathing, yoga positions, and meditation can help reduce these cravings.

When we become more aware of the mind-body connection through the practice of yoga, we can identify what our bodies really need and make healthy decisions about what we put in our body.

Bottom Line: Regular practice of yoga can decrease blood sugar levels, keep weight in check, and reduce stress, all of which help improve diabetes symptoms.

8. The Practice of Yoga Can Help Regulate Your Adrenal Glands

Adrenal fatigue syndrome can cause lack of energy, disrupted sleep, anxiety, and a number of other symptoms that are triggered by a sustained ‘fight or flight’ response in the body. This can result from prolonged levels of stress, a traumatic event, or a stressful living situation.

When your adrenal glands are not functioning correctly, too much cortisol is released into your body and it compromises your immune function. Those who have adrenal fatigue syndrome get sick more often and have a lowered level of energy to deal with the sickness. They are also more susceptible to osteoporosis and high blood pressure, and tend to gain more fat in the abdomen area.

Mastering the breathing that is the center of all yoga practices is a key element in managing stress levels. Because high stress is the main contributing factor to adrenal issues, it makes sense that this type of breathing will lower cortisol levels and lessen the symptoms of adrenal fatigue syndrome.

When we practice yoga, we also give our minds a chance to quiet down and take a break from any negative our repetitive thoughts that often take over when our adrenal glands are overwhelmed.

This can be a beneficial time to check in with ourselves and identify how we’re feeling. Those experiencing high stress often put themselves last, which only leads to more stress.

Yoga encourages us to to take some time for ourselves. When we look deep, breathe, and practice self-care, we can often deal with negative emotions and the situations that are causing them.

Bottom Line: The regular practice of yoga can reduce stress and lessen the release of cortisol, helping to combat the symptoms of adrenal fatigue syndrome.

9. Yoga Strengthens Bones

Weight-bearing activities have long been known to strengthen bones, which is why many of those who are at risk for osteoporosis are encouraged to begin a strength-training workout regimen. Yoga training, with its many positions that put pressure on different body parts, can be considered weight-bearing and has shown the ability to build bone mass in scientific studies.

In contrast to other, more intense cardio exercises like jogging or weight training, yoga does not damage cartilage or stress the joints. Instead, it lengthens and holds muscles, which creates tension on the bone. This helps to build bone strength.

The release of cortisol, the hormone triggered by stress, is another factor in osteoporosis. Yoga, with its relaxing and stress-calming nature, can reduce the amount of cortisol that is released and therefore lessen the impact it has on the bones.

As few as a dozen yoga poses held for 30 seconds each, if done on a daily basis, can be enough to ward off osteoporosis and strengthen bones in the spine, arms, and legs.

10. The Healing Powers of the Breath Aid in Improved Respiration

Yoga is all about harnessing the healing powers of the breath. Though all of us must breathe to live, most of us do not breathe efficiently.

Experts agree that to feel your best, you should breathe approximately 5 to 6 breaths per minute. However, most of us take anywhere from 14 to 20 breaths per minute, which is three times faster than what is healthy.

Breath changes depending on emotion, and vice versa. When we get panicked, upset, or angry, we tend to breath more shallowly and at a faster rate. When we get used to breathing this way because of chronic stress, our body gets used to it and we develop the habit of breathing quickly even in normal circumstances.

When we breathe at a slow and relaxed pace, we are signaling to the brain that it can rest and that no dangers are present. This reduces stress hormones, turns off danger warnings, and allows our body to recover.

Not only do we turn off the ‘fight or flight’ response of our nervous system when we breathe deeply, but we also increase chest wall expansion and lung volumes. This is beneficial to all who practice yoga, but can be especially important for those dealing with a respiratory illness or condition such as asthma.

Everything in yoga is based on the breath. Pranayamic breathing exercises can be performed anywhere when you are in need of stress relief or relaxation. Make sure the air quality in your practice environment is good, however – consider getting an air purifier if that is not the case.

All other forms of yoga, from the extremely gentle restorative yoga to the more intense vinyasa and ashtanga practices, also rely on a basis of breathing deeply and being aware of how your breathing affects every part of your body and mind.

Bottom Line: All forms of yoga are based on breathing. The regular practice of yoga teaches us how to pay attention to the breath and can improve lung volume and chest capacity, helping those who deal with respiratory issues.

11. Chronic Pain Can Often Be Managed Effectively with Yoga

Chronic pain, whether caused by a disease like fibromyalgia, an accident, or a side effect of treatments for other conditions, can easily impair quality of life. If bad enough, it can also trigger brain structure changes that are linked to impaired cognition, anxiety, and depression.

The regular practice of yoga can help those with chronic pain manage it on a number of levels. If pain is due to muscle or joint issues, such as the case with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome, or back pain, the simple act of regular stretching with a yoga ball chair and range of motion exercises can be enough to significantly reduce pain.

The increased flow of oxygen to brain and muscle tissues that results from the breathing and movement of yoga also help improve energy levels and general feelings of well-being, making it easier to deal with physical pain.

This breathing, combined with the physical movements of yoga, can help release muscle tension held in your body. This often decreases pain or, in some cases, relieves it entirely.

The benefits of yoga as it relates to pain management do not stop there, however, Yoga also appears to increase gray matter in your brain through a process called neurogenesis. There are also indications that it can strengthen white matter connectivity. Many researchers believe that reduction of gray matter and weak connectivity are the most significant factors in chronic pain.

Yogis dealing with pain can also benefit from the stress reduction and decrease in cortisol release the practice brings. This not only helps with tension, but can also help them cope with the anticipation of pain. Instead of having a ‘fight or flight’ reaction to pain, those who have practiced yoga may be able to form a more gentle reaction that does not trigger additional stress.

Bottom Line: The breathing and movement associated with yoga can help those suffering from muscle or joint pain. Regular yoga practice can also trigger changes in the brain that can help chronic pain sufferers deal with and lessen pain symptoms.

12. Those Who Practice Yoga See Fewer Allergy Symptoms

Do you deal with the misery of itchy eyes, scratchy throat, fatigue, and congestion that comes with allergies? Millions of people suffer from allergies brought on by pollen, grass, dust, pet dander, or other substances to the point that it affects their work, their social life, and their sleep.

How do allergies develop? Many scientists have studied the phenomenon and found that an allergic reaction occurs when your immune system over-responds to an otherwise harmless substance. Your body mistakenly treats this substance like a dangerous invader and releases histamines.

Histamines are a faulty immune response, and they can condition the body to display symptoms that start to resemble a disease. Many argue that, to be susceptible to allergies, sufferers may have a compromised immune system, weak digestive system or be experiencing toxic overload.

Yoga addresses many different levels of wellness that can lead to a reduction in allergy symptoms. Stress is a leading cause of a poor immune system and digestive problems, and can also be a toxin that makes the body weaker.

As we’ve already addressed many times in this article, the regular practice of yoga is one of the best stress reducers on the planet. Of the many benefits of stress reduction, an improvement in allergies is just one.

Kriyas, or cleansing practices, are another element of yoga that can help with allergies. These practices range from rapid breathing exercises to gentle cleansing of the nasal passages with salt water, which can remove viruses and pollen from the nose.

Studies have also found that regular yoga practice may reduce inflammation in the body. Another harmful effect of stress, inflammation can worsen allergies and cause attacks to be more severe.

Bottom Line: Those who practice traditional yoga or engage in cleansing kriyas can reduce their susceptibility to allergies and also improve the symptoms associated with them.

Couples who have struggled with conceiving a child often turn to fertility drugs or even more intensive measures of in vitro fertilization to realize their dreams of having a baby. Before turning to costly and sometimes side-effect laden treatments, couples should first explore the more gentle treatment of practicing yoga.

Yoga enhances fertility in the ways one might expect: by reducing stress that can often harm the chances of conceiving. Stress can lead to the release of an enzyme, called alpha amylase, which can impact a woman’s fertility. Many women who have problems conceiving are stressed to begin with, then become more stressed as they fail to conceive. This can lead to a vicious cycle where stress continues to increase each month, making it more and more difficult to get pregnant.

In addition to stress reduction, yoga can also increase blood flow to reproductive organs, which not only improves their function but also improves hormone function.

All regular yoga practices can help with fertility, but those who are actively trying to conceive may benefit from the more targeted fertility yoga practice. This is aimed specifically at nurturing, supporting, and strengthening the endocrine and reproductive system.

Fertility yoga incorporates specific poses that re-balances the system and strengthens muscles and organs that are used during pregnancy and childbirth. This helps make for a healthy pregnancy once a woman conceives.

Bottom Line: The stress reduction and rebalancing benefits of yoga can help women who want to conceive. Those struggling with fertility issues may want to practice targeted fertility yoga that helps with both conception and a healthy pregnancy.

14. A Consistent Yoga Practice Can Lead to a Balanced Metabolism

Your metabolism is the basic biochemical process that converts the food you eat into the energy you need to live. A sluggish metabolism can mean weight gain, low energy, and problems with regularity.

Though long thought to be a practice focused mostly on relaxation and stretching, yoga can actually be a moderately strenuous workout that increases muscle, increases heart rate, and revs up the fire of your metabolism.

In addition to increasing heart rate to boost metabolism, the practice of yoga also affects digestion, circulation, and muscle tone, all of which have an impact on how efficiently your body creates energy.

With the majority of your digestive tract located in your core, the yoga positions that engage the abdomen, especially those that involve twisting or bringing the knees to the chest, can wring out toxins and encourage waste to pass through your body.

Circulation is another factor important to your metabolism. If your body has poor circulation, your organs suffer from a lack of nutrients and oxygen, which slows metabolism. The deep breathing inherent in yoga helps open up arteries and release pressure, all of which help with proper circulation.

Many people make the mistake of thinking yoga is not strenuous enough to build muscle mass. However, the weight bearing features of many of the poses target large and small muscle groups, building them in size and density.

When we build muscle, we not only increase strength, but we also burn more calories. Muscle burns more than fat, and the more calories we burn, the more our metabolism rate increases.

Bottom Line: Yoga has an effect on digestion, circulation, and building muscle, all of which positively affect your metabolism.

15. Practicing Yoga at any Time of Day Helps You Sleep Better

Sleep is crucial to our energy levels, mood, concentration, and ability to be happy and successful in our everyday lives.

Those most sleep experts recommend that adults get 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep per night, most of us get far less than this. Even if you are in bed for the necessary hours, inability to get to sleep, waking up frequently, or tossing and turning can turn those hours into less-than-quality rest.

Insomnia or reduced sleep quality can be the product of stress, underlying illness or disease, poor sleeping conditions, vitamin deficiency, or hundreds of other factors. This often makes it difficult to identify what issues are at play.

Though every person may have a different reason for not sleeping well, yoga can have a beneficial effect on everyone’s sleep quality. Because the nervous system is responsible for a restful sleep, yoga’s calming effects are especially helpful.

A calm mind leads to a calm body, both of which play a part in how easy it is to get to sleep and how restful that sleep is. Many people are bothered by a ‘busy mind’ that simply cannot shut off at the end of the day.

Yoga teaches us how to breathe deeply and disconnect from our worries and from those distracting thoughts that tend to keep us up at night. By giving ourselves the tools to put thoughts aside and instead focus on our breath, we give ourselves an excellent tool for the perfect night of sleep.

Although a regular yoga practice done consistently at any time of day will undoubtedly affect your sleep, those who really struggle may benefit from poses done at night that are specifically aimed at helping you sleep more soundly.

Others benefit more from a Kundalini yoga sequence before bed that incorporates long, slow breathing and meditation. It’s best to try out both methods to see what leads to a better night of sleep for you.

The Bottom Line: The stress-relieving benefits of a consistent yoga practice can help improve your sleep quality. Those with sleeping problems can also benefit from a bedtime routine that includes specific poses or deep breathing paired with meditation.

16. All Forms of Yoga Work Wonders on Your Range of Motion

Range of motion is important to our overall quality of life, and it decreases as we age. Important for injury prevention as well as as our ability to do daily tasks with minimal discomfort, range of motion can be increased with regular yoga.

Why does range of motion decrease as we age and how can yoga combat this? As we get older, the tissue around joints tend to thicken and cartilage decreases. The knees and hips are especially susceptible to these depletions, making them more prone to injury in older individuals.

As muscle mass decreases, this also affects our range of motion as we age. Our ease of movement decreases, and general fitness levels tend to drop.

When range of motion decreases, it often triggers a snowball effect. Movement becomes more difficult, so individuals tend to move less often. This, in turn, triggers more movement impairment.

Yoga is based on controlled, prolonged stretching. This type of movement is still comfortable for those who are experiencing a lack of flexibility or injury that restricts range of motion.

Not only is yoga a practical exercise for those in this situation, but it also tends to reverse the lack of flexibility that they experience.

A daily practice of prolonged stretching that is inherent in any yoga program elongates the muscles and enables joint flexibility.

The slow, deliberate process of gently stretching muscles over a long period of time is both beneficial and achievable for those of all ages. It can be done throughout the lifetime and rarely needs to be suspended due to injury or other ailments.

Bottom Line: The gentle and prolonged stretching that makes up the core of yoga helps increase range of motion and preserve it throughout the lifetime.

17. Practicing Yoga Can Help Treat Arthritis

Arthritis is an excruciating affliction that severely impacts quality of life. Rheumatoid arthritis, or RA, can occur at any age, and is triggered by a faulty immune system. Osteoarthritis, or OA, is a degenerative disorder that usually takes place as a person ages. It’s estimated that there are over three million cases of OA in the United States per year.

While medication can greatly help both those suffering from RA and OA, exercise is always recommended as well. Because arthritis is characterized by painful swelling in the joints, many forms of traditional exercise may be unbearable.

Yoga is incredibly easy on the joints and is usually a comfortable activity for even the most severe arthritis sufferers. The gentle stretching of yoga can ease joint discomfort and the focused breathing can help those in pain distance deal with the chronic distress.

The muscle-building and energy-boosting effects of yoga can also help those with arthritis. OA and RA tend to zap energy, which leads to a sedentary lifestyle and muscle atrophy. Those who practice yoga tend to be more active, which lessens arthritis symptoms.

The psychological benefits of yoga on those suffering from arthritis are also to be noted. Those with arthritis who regularly practice yoga suffer from less depression, improved coping abilities, stress reduction and an enhanced sense of well-being.

Bottom Line: Yoga is a safe and effective form of exercise for those suffering from both osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. It helps ease joint discomfort and boosts energy and a sense of well-being.

Because it can be practiced by individuals at any age and in any shape, yoga is a practice that can be adopted by virtually everyone.

Yoga increases our awareness, which often leads practitioners to start making changes in every part of their lives. As they develop more self-awareness, they often make changes that include healthier food choices, fewer toxic relationships, and more time to take care of themselves.

Over time, these choices add up to a much healthier and happier lifestyle. The increase in overall quality of life can even equal more years on your life.

Bottom Line: Yoga increases self-awareness, which leads to other healthy choices and overall increase in wellness and happiness.

Tantra – Mantra and Yantra: a Scientific Study in Creation, Calculation and Consequence

Eternity is the most coveted stage in the Indian scriptures. Through mystical practice, the process of amalgamation that takes place between an individual, an intermediary source such as Mantra and Yantra, and the Supreme Divine Power can turn that which is mortal into immortal substance and grant us deliverance from age, maladies and death. The ancient spiritual seers of India envisioned a divine Yantra, or divine mystical form, which turned into an elixir of immortality. Since very remote times people have applied the science of Yantra to solve their physical, mental and other material problems. By doing so, they create a level of health in mind and body that are no less precious than this immortal elixir.

Colour, smell, sound and forms have a direct bearing on our mental states. Each of them strikes the mind in its own way and creates a complicated network of wave patterns that are conducive to health and beneficial for the practitioner. Science has discovered infinite energy in the fission of atoms. Mystical strokes on the mental screen can generate energy in a similar way.

The ways of mysticism are strange. They are even stranger for the mystical truth they contain. Mantra is the most significant among the different approaches of mysticism in that it attempts not only to analyze the human mind but also to synthesize it. Mantra Shastra, or ancient Mantric scriptures, describe in every detail how the human mind can be distributed in different directions in order to reunite it into a single whole.

Shastras are called Shruti or “Something that has been passed on through generations as an oral tradition”. An implicit quality of Mantra is that it is a form of knowledge that has to be communicated in spoken words. It can not be written down. The ancients presumed that something gets lost between sound and its inscription. A written script can be analyzed, but the actual force of sound with its articulation, pitch and tone and the specific arrangements of multiple sounds are totally lost as soon as they are scripted.

The Vedas were preserved through oral tradition for thousands of years. Their documentation was ignored on purpose because the sonic power of the Vedas would be dissociated and therefore lost. The whole calculation would alter with the written word. The ancients understood that if sounds came to be represented by written symbols or alphabets, their finer, subtle sensibilities would be marred. Documentation would render them lifeless. That’s why scripture has always been passed through the ages in the form of Shruti.

Mantra is a word or a phrase propelled with power. It is a methodical set of notes pronounced with a particular pitch, articulation and tone. Its rhythmic incantation sends specific, one-of-a-kind vibrations through the medium of the ether present in the atmosphere. These vibrations gradually affect the different cells of the body. Incantation merges the energy of sound and will power. It is only when the horizontal and the vertical sound waves of the words achieve the same wavelength as those of the juxtaposing energy waves of the body that the Mantra achieves perfection and galvanizes itself. This can be achieved by constant repetition of the Mantra in its characteristic rhythm and tone. If a sound or a word in a Mantra is dislocated or interchanged, the desired effect will not be produced and render the incantation futile. The precision of a Mantra is its only inherent steering force.

It was in order to reflect the wholesome effect of the constant incantation of Mantra on himself that man devised Yantras in the form of temples. The domes in the architecture of our temples are very significant. They are miniature replicas of the sky. The sound of OM is lost under the sky and doesn’t reflect back to the one who produces the sound. A dome, on the contrary, reflects the sound back to the source itself. Constant incantation creates a circle of sound: one emanating from the source and the other reflecting back to it. This encircling effect transports the devotee to an inexplicable spiritual elevation. If the incantation is practiced in solitude, this sonic circle should put a definite end to the thought current. In other words, the turmoil of thoughts subsists only in the absence of the circle of energy round the devotee. The moment the circle is complete, the energy pacifies and channels itself into spiritual power unto the desired goal of the devotee. The domes of the temples, therefore, symbolize a mystical process that has been lost over the years through disuse.

When the scholars of the west visited Indian temples for the first time they considered them unhygienic because of the congestion caused by lack of proper ventilation. Later they were amazed to discover that the devotees sitting in these ‘closed temples’ were among the healthiest people in all of India. This was when they realized that the incantation of a particular sound like OM purifies and purges the atmosphere by striking it regularly with vibrations.

Our seekers of Mantra have been meditating for centuries in closed caves that hardly admit any light or air and yet they have been healthy and content. This is because there are particular utterances that purify and others that defend against disease. For these reasons these sounds have been called Nad Brahma, the highest sublimation of sound.

The Pranav Mantra, or OM, symbolizes the whole universe. The Rigveda, which is the original treatise on Mantra, attached optimum significance to this Pranav Mantra. Maharshi Aurbindo has said, “‘OM’ is the signature of the Lord; with the help of ‘Om’ one can realize the Divine”. Patanjali’s Yoga sutras, in the same strain, proclaim – “Pranav is the spoken symbol of God and thus it has the realization of God and the Universe.”

Nad, or sound, is regarded as a form of Brahma. This signifies that sound is omnipotent and the ultimate energy. Mimansa philosophy established Mantra as a form of God. Each Mantra corresponds to a patron god or goddess. Each Mantra, sound and intonation has a particular articulation that can be revealed through systematic analysis. The ancient visionaries with full knowledge of the power of sounds devised words or phrases that exert tremendous effects. These words and phrases are the original seed Mantras. The scholars and seekers determined through their experience and experimentation the frequencies peculiar to each Mantra and have prescribed the exact number of times a Mantra has to be repeated to create the desired results.

Musical symphonies create soothing effects on the human mind as well as the body. Rhythmic chanting of Mantra vibrates through the medium of the ether in a similar way. Mantras create particular sonic patterns whose waves influence the cells of the body. This impact can reach far beyond local effects. It can even be directed to a person who is thousands of miles away. This phenomenon is similar to a radio that can receive electromagnetic waves from the atmosphere and reproduce sounds that originate thousands of miles away.

Several laboratories in the west have recently undertaken experiments with sound and its possible impact on living systems. Some of these experiments have come up with significant conclusions. For example, one of them demonstrated that plants that normally bear flowers in six months blossom and bloom in two months with the effect of particular sounds. In Russia, the milking of cows has been influenced with certain sounds. Humans may also therefore respond to the impact of sound.

The medical world already makes skillful use of many forms of ultrasound therapy for both diagnosis and treatment. Medical scientists have successfully carried out numerous therapeutic experiments with sounds and musical compositions.

Music has proved to be a miracle cure for many a hopeless medical cause. For example, a 10-year old English girl, Catherine Fisher, fell into a coma after a bicycle accident. In the 12th day of her coma her desperate parents decided to play their little daughter some of her favourite music. They took a. tape recording into her hospital room and played some of the tunes with which she used to dance at her ballet classes. Then, for the first time since her accident, Catherine opened her eyes and smiled.

Doctors explain that areas of the brain that become tired can be revived by the introduction of familiar sounds or voices. Perhaps this is one of the mechanisms that helped young Catherine.

Experiments have been carried out to show the effects of music on sleeping people. When cheerful music is played to the sleeping people, they get up in a cheerful mood. Contrarily, if a person wakes up in the midst of noise or harsh music, s/he will be irritated and indignant in her/his mood. Thirdly, if pathetic music is employed to wake someone up, the person will be found sad in disposition. These three responses from the experimental subject’s point of view have no rhyme or reason. Yet they sufficiently demonstrate the effect of sound on the human mind and thus uphold the concept that sound can affect the cords of the psyche.

Incantation can provide remedies to almost all maladies. In this therapy the body cannot be superior to the conscience or the spirit. If the conscience is pure there is no reason for the body to be diseased. There is no shelter for the maladies.

In a non-medical experiment, Miss Watts Huge of London created a device she called an audiophone that she wrote about in her popular book Voice Figure. The audiophone has a sensitive vibrating membrane that she scatters with particles of different colours. These particles get momentum from the vibrations of the membrane and form different pictures that sometimes look like rivers, serpents, mountains and trees.

Using the same instrument, a Bengali student from India intoned the Bhairavashtak metre for Madam Kinlang of Paris. While the young man was singing, the particles of the audiophone’s membrane galvanized and in a few minutes formed into the patron god of the metre, Kal Bhairav.

The preceding thoughts can help us to understand why Mantra is considered to be all-important in making a Yantra effective. Mantra and Yantra are the two divisions of an ancient sacred science. Mantra interconnects with Yantra, and vice versa. Yantra is a representation of a Mantra in a graphic or other substantial form like an icon. A Mantra’s energy can be preserved in a Yantra as if it is in a battery.

Yantras are usually metallic because metals are good conductors of energy. They are made of gold, silver or bronze sheets that are consecrated and mystified. Yantras are powerful in proportion to their consecration and the mystic powers at the command of their makers. The electromagnetic power created by the incantation of a Mantra is intentionally preserved and discharged through a Yantra. The electromagnetic waves of the Mantra charge the Yantra to produce the requisite energy for the purpose of the Mantra. These waves are directed towards definite directions in order to expand the area of their effects. There have been hundreds of different forms of Mantras that represent the farthest limits of imagination and the deepest human sentiments.

A Yantra is therefore an instrument or tool that directs the functional force of a particular Mantra. Yantras symbolize divine power at its first manifestation. The process of making a Yantra embodies a journey from the minutest form of expression of a Mantra to the definition, description and presentation of its material form.

One of the definitions of Yantra is “machine.” Although many modern machines are based on the philosophy of Yantras, the sacred scriptures of India clearly describe how ancient Yantras were hundreds of times more powerful than our machines of today. Yantras are not inanimate entities like modern machines. They are living sources of mystical energy. Their fabrication and function are different from machines. Yantras have been much more functional and significant than machines to our ancestors, who attached due respect and reverence for them by adopting Yantras as integral parts of their social behaviour.

The purpose of technical machines is physical. Their structure and use further the material gains of the user. Yantras, on the other hand, are infused with mystical powers to become independent entities. They are not considered to be merely material. Yantras are invented with definite purposes. A complicated mystical process goes into mystifying even the metallic materials from which they are made into very special elements. The practitioner attains this stage for these elements through ardent and tedious meditation.

Dr. Alaxander Pavlovich of the department of computer research in Moscow University has stated that he was fascinated by the geometrical charm and sound form of the Shree Yantra. The Shree Yantra is particularly charming if one gazes at it intently for a long time. One can experience an indescribable mesmerism by observing the Shree Yantra, whose sophisticated equations would take even the most modern computer a hundred million operations to calculate.

Yantras are diagrammatic representations of Mantras in the ethereal medium. The incantation of a Mantra produces various vibrations in the atmosphere. These particular sound waves create a source, which is a Yantra. Our ancient practitioners of Yantra perfected this process and employed it for human welfare.

In their operational stage, Yantras relate to the Subconscious mind. As carriers of spiritual power, Yantras affect the human body as well as the environment around it. Our body substance is composed of five natural elements. It is also imprinted with numerous energies from its surroundings. A Yantra is a sketch of the total impact of these energies and their lines of influence impregnated into form. The sound waves of a Mantra create mystical effects on the human mind. A Yantra with its linear sketches and letters also affects the human mind in its own way.

Mantra has formed an essential ingredient of all faiths in one form or another. The most noble purposes and divine attributes have always been ascribed to Mantra. Yet the mere mention of the word “Yantra” conjures up a kind of fear or dread in the society of India today. Our common belief holds that the mystical powers of Yantras are often exercised to destroy human life out of vengeance. Such baseless fears misrepresent the whole Yantric concept by incorrectly labeling it as a destructive art. Scholars and all those who hold this highly spiritual practice in great esteem must combat these misinterpretations and misgivings and campaign to popularize the real significance of Yantras at the same time.

Spiritual Yantras are created with great thought and reasoning. They are undeniably impressive, made expressly to stimulate a special kind of mental activity and evoke psychosomatic force. Highly trained experts can utilize Yantras in ritual as offerings, meditations and rites that can change a person completely and give him or her a new direction in life.

Almost all Yantras available in standard forms have specific purposes assigned to them. Their operations strike corresponding fibres of the human form to activate the desired elements. Incantation and consecrated geometric representation are the central science of the mystical process of Yantra. A Yantra contains the potential to acquire total control over one’s body and can be functional in producing its desired effects through these very specific operations. It is amazing that the processes that were visualized and embodied by our noble ancestors thousand of years ago are still operational and effective with great precision today.

Tantric Pranayama – Alternate Nostril Breathing

Your nose is exceptionally clever. Simply by practising a few rounds of alternate nostril breathing (pranayama) for a few minutes each day, you can help restore imbalances in your brain – improve sleep – calm your emotional state – boost your thinking – calm your nervous system. How impressive is that!

Another interesting fact about your nostrils, is that you don’t breathe through them equally all the time. Right now, you will be favouring either your left nostril or your right nostril.

Left nostril for calming – right nostril for energy:

Your nose is directly linked to your brain and nervous system. For thousands of years the Indian yogis believe that many diseases are connected to disturbed nasal breathing.

Breathing in through your left nostril will access the right “feeling” hemisphere of your brain, and breathing in through your right nostril, will access the left “thinking” hemisphere of your brain. Consciously alternating your breath between either nostril will allow you to activate and access your whole brain.

Yogic breathing, the perfect relaxation tool:

I happen to believe alternate nostril breathing is up there, as one of the most therapeutic calming rituals. It’s the very reason I include it at all my Slow Yoga Relaxation Retreats. It profoundly helps to settle, cool, calm and nourish an agitated mind and wired nervous system. Even after only two minutes you can feel and notice a distinct difference as to how you feel.

12 benefits of alternate nostril breathing:

1: Revitalizes you:

A few rounds of alternate nostril breathing is a quick pick me up if you are feeling flat, tired or even stressed. It provides your body with a much needed dose of extra energy.

2: Improves brain function:

When you mind is dull – concentration and clarity is poor. Alternate nostril breathing brings equal amounts of oxygen to both sides of the brain for improved brain function. Five minutes of alternate nostril breathing before an exam or interview is a great way to access your whole brain for improved performance. Remember the brain loses hydration first so drink water as well.

3: Cleanses your lungs:

A daily five minute practice morning and night of alternate nostril breathing is great way to remove stale air and impurities from the bottom of your lungs.

The ancient yogis believe that if you can regulate your breath, then you can control your mind.

5: Merges the left “thinking” brain and right “feeling brain:

Alternate nostril breathing optimizes both sides of your brain so you can access your whole brain, and all the benefits that go with it.

Try it out next time you need to drive your car. Cover your left nostril with your thumb and breathe only through your right nostril for one minute. This should keep you more alert when driving.

6: Encourage a calmer emotional state:

In times of emotional distress and upset, a few rounds of mindful nostril breathing will soften the intensity of over reactive emotional states. The longer you practice, the more stable your thinking, and the calmer your emotions will become.

7: Improves sleep:

If you can’t sleep at night lay on your right hand side, gently close your right nostril with your right thumb and breath through your left nostril. This will activate your parasympathetic nervous system which will calm you down and slow your heart rate. Left nostril breathing is cooling, calming and nourishing for your whole being.

Alternate nostril breathing is a simple little trick that can be practiced for a few minutes before you begin your meditation practice. It’s a very easy way to help you find your meditation groove.

9: Soothes your nervous system:

By focusing on your breath and deepening it, your brain will register this message and trigger the parasympathetic nervous system. You have effectively switched your nervous system from a stressed response, into a relaxation response. Single left nostril breathing (by closing your right nostril) will direct the flow of oxygen and energy to the right hemisphere of your brain, allowing once again, for the parasympathetic nervous system to be switched on. Gosh, your breath and nose is very clever.

10: Regulates the cooling and warming cycles of the body:

Left nostril is feminine, nurturing, calm, receiving and cooling. Right nostril is masculine, heat, competitive, doing, active and force. Favouring one nostril more than the other can effect the heat or coolness of your body.

11: Clears and boosts your energy channels:

Slightly forced alternate nostril breathing improves and directs the flow of energy throughout your body – preventing sluggishness. It oxygenates your blood and allows the energy (prana) in your body to be strong and flowing.

12: Enhances rest and relaxation:

A restless mind cannot relax. Alternate nostril breathing melts away an imbalances between the right and left hemisphere of your brain and calms your thinking. This is perfect for helping you access rest and relaxation far more efficiently.

An alternate nostril breathing exercise – purifying breath:

Step one: Use right thumb to close off right nostril.

Step two: Inhale slowly through left nostril

Step three: Pause for a second

Step four: Now close left nostril with ring finger and release thumb off right nostril

Step five: Exhale through your right nostril

Step six: Now, inhale through right nostril

Step seven: Pause

Step eight: Use thumb to close of right nostril

Step nine: Breathe out through left nostril

Step ten: This is one round. Start slowly with 1 or 2 rounds and gradually increase.Never force.Sit quietly for a few moments after you have finished.

There are many, many different techniques of pranayama such as inhaling for 4, holding for 4 and exhaling for 4.

Caution:

Do not hold your breath if you have high blood pressure. More advanced methods of pranayama (alternate nostril breathing) need to be practiced with an experienced practitioner. practicing on an empty stomach is preferred.

Tantric Buddhism

March 14, 2014

The esoteric teachings, secret initiations and erotic imagery associated with Buddhist tantra have fueled no end of interest. But tantra may not be what you think it is.

What Is Tantra?

Countless practices of several Asian religions have been lumped together by western scholars under the heading “tantra.” The only commonality among these practices is the use of ritual or sacramental action to channel divine energies. The earliest tantra probably grew out of the Hindu-Vedic tradition. Buddhist tantra developed independently of Hindu for many centuries, however, and they are barely related now in spite of a surface resemblance.

Even if we limit our study to Buddhist tantra, we are still looking at a vast range of practices and multiple definitions. Very broadly, most Buddhist tantra is a means to enlightenment through identity with tantric deities. It is sometimes also called “deity-yoga.”

It’s important to understand that these deities are not “believed in” as external spirits to be worshiped. Rather, they are archetypes representing the tantric practitioner’s own deepest nature.

Mahayana and Vajrayana

One sometimes hears of three “yanas” (vehicles) of Buddhism — Hinayana (“small vehicle”), Mahayana(“great vehicle”) and Vajrayana (“diamond vehicle”), with tantra being the distinguishing feature of Vajrayana. Sorting the many schools and sects of Buddhism into these three categories is not helpful to understanding Buddhism, however. The Vajrayana sects are founded solidly on Mahayana philosophies and doctrines; tantra is a method by which the teachings are actualized. Vajrayana is best understood as an extension of Mahayana.

Further, although Buddhist tantra is most often associated with the Vajrayana sects of Tibetan Buddhism, it is by no means limited to Tibetan Buddhism. To a greater or lesser degree, elements of tantra can be found in many Mahayana schools, especially in Japan. Japanese Zen, Pure Land, Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism, for example, all have strong veins of tantra running through them. Japanese Shingon Buddhism is thoroughly tantric.

Origins of Buddhist Tantra

As with many other aspects of Buddhism, myth and history don’t always find their way to the same ball park.

Vajrayana Buddhists say tantric practices were expounded by the historical Buddha. A king approached the Buddha and explained that his responsibilities did not allow him to abandon his people and become a monk. Yet in his privileged position he was surrounded by temptations and pleasures. How could he realize enlightenment? The Buddha responded by teaching the king tantric practices that would transform pleasures into transcendent realization.

Many historians speculate that tantra was developed by Mahayana teachers in India very early in the first millennia CE, possibly as a way to reach those who weren’t responding to teachings from the sutras. (I personally strongly disagree with this because the Buddha taught Tantra hundreds of years before the First Millennia CE. I believe that evidence strongly supports the understanding that Tantra existed BEFORE Buddhism and long before Hinduism.

Wherever it came from, by the 7th century CE tantric Buddhism was fully systemized in northern India. This was significant to the development of Tibetan Buddhism. The first Buddhist teachers in Tibet, beginning in the 8th century with the arrival of Padmasambhava, were tantric teachers from northern India.

By contrast, Buddhism reached China about the year 1. Mahayana Buddhist sects that emerged in China, such as Pure Land and Zen, also incorporate tantric practices, but these are not nearly as elaborate as in Tibetan tantra.

Sutra Versus Tantra

Vajrayana teachers compare what they call the gradual, causal or sutra path of Buddhism to the speedier tantra path. By “sutra” path, they mean following the Precepts, developing meditative concentration and studying sutras to develop seeds, or causes, of enlightenment. In this way enlightenment will be realized in the future. Tantra, on the other hand, is a means to bring this future result into the present moment by realizing oneself as an enlightened being.

The Pleasure Principle

I’ve already defined Buddhist tantra as “a means to enlightenment through identity with tantric deities.” This is a definition that works for most tantric practices in Mahayana and Vajrayana.

Vajrayana Buddhism also defines tantra as a means to channel the energy of desire and transform the experience of pleasure into realization of enlightenment. According to the late Lama Thubten Yeshe,

“The same desirous energy that ordinarily propels us from one unsatisfactory situation is transmuted, through the alchemy of tantra, into a transcendental experience of bliss and wisdom. The practitioner focuses the penetrating brilliance of this blissful wisdom so that it cuts like a laser beam through all false projections of this and that and pierces the very heart of reality.” (Introduction to Tantra: A Vision of Totality [1987], p. 37)

Behind Closed Doors

In Vajrayana Buddhism, the practitioner is initiated into incremental levels of esoteric teachings under the guidance of a guru. Upper-level rituals and teachings are not made public. This esotericism, combined with the sexual nature of much Vajrayana art, has led to much winking and nudging about upper-level tantra.

Vajrayana teachers say most of the practices of Buddhist tantra are not sexual, and what is mostly involves visualizations. Many tantric masters are celibate. It’s likely nothing goes on in upper-level tantra that couldn’t be shown to schoolchildren. I believe the reason for the secretiveness is that the teachings could easily be misunderstood or misused by people who are not being properly guided by an authentic teacher.

What is “Tantra”?

March 14, 2014

Q. What is Tantra? I have heard it has something to do with Sacred Sexuality.

A. Allow me to set the record straight once and for all: Tantra is often associated with sacred sex. The ancient Sanskrit word tantraliterally means “warp and woof” or “continuation” and refers to non-duality, interwovenenss, or oneness through the union of opposites.

Tantra is an ancient, esoteric Indian spiritual tradition, common to both Hinduism and Buddhism, dating back to before the time of Christ–and even the Buddha, who lived in the sixth century B.C.E. Buddha is said to have transmitted Tantric teachings to his disciples. Both Hindu and Buddhist Tantric traditions emphasize the cultivation of enlightened consciousness, divine oneness, and the burning off of blockages and defilements that cover and inhibit the inner radiance of our own original nature or innate state of perfection. Classic Tantric Buddhist texts, such as an ancient, anonymous manual called “The Union of the Sun and Moon,” reveal how to utilize the right and left psychic energy channels (nadis)–which, in yogic physiology, embody the masculine (solar) and feminine (lunar) energies within our own bodies. As a result, we can become more integrated, awaken our inner energy, and thus experience wholeness.

In Tibetan Buddhism, or Vajrayana, the term refers to various kinds of texts (medical, astrological Tantras, etc.) and more generally to the systems of meditation of our tradition. There are four classes of these esoteric texts and treatises, and they form the heart of Tibetan Buddhism. Thus Vajrayana Buddhism is also known in Tibetan as Tantrayana, or the Tantric vehicle to enlightenment.

Today the term Tantra is sometimes misunderstood or even misused in the West. Made out to be synonymous with eroticism and licentiousness, there are myriad books and websites claiming to help students harness the Tantric teachings as a means to great sex and financial success. There are even commercial relationship workshops promising better sex through sensual Tantric training.

But TRUE Tantric practices involve no sex, and Tantric yoga is best practiced under the guidance of an experienced and qualified teacher or Lama.

Of course, sexuality is a healthy part of life, and the sexual drive is one of the most powerful energies in us. Although Western religions seem to have lost touch with the wisdom of the body and the sacred dimension of sexual energy, Tantric adepts through millennia have worked to find ways in which to integrate that energy into spiritual practice, and turn this powerful force into rocket-fuel-like propellant on the path of spiritual ecstasy and transcendence. In ancient India, this became the practice known as sacred sex, practiced with a certain amount of ritual and using specific ritual sexual practices, including maithuna–coupling with minimal movement, and holding of or even abstaining from orgasm in order to increase self-control and to purify desire.

This practice–given the right intention, training, guidance, concentration, and conditions–can sublimate and transmute sexual drive into higher, more spiritual aspirations. Through practices known as seminal retention, “melting and blazing,” the “all-consuming fire of total embrace,” “mystic heat,” and so forth, advanced practitioners have been able to redirect the release of energy upward through the body, opening all the chakras in continuous waves of full-body, orgasm-like bliss and consciousness. Quite a contrast–in purpose and experience–to the more typical, brief, downward-releasing sexual climax, usually followed by dullness and sleep.

This transformation of energy is Tantra’s capacity for developing samadhi (concentrative absorption), expanding consciousness, and opening into meditation. More than 1,000 years ago, the yogis of Bengal and Orissa in India developed this spiritual art, and a few still practice it in an underground fashion, as do the Tantric yogis and lamas of Tibetan Buddhism, where it still continues in the fullest form today.

Many Tantric practices, as I mentioned, do not involve a literal union of two people, though they are based in the symbolic synthesis of male and female, solar and lunar, compassion and wisdom. One such fundamental aspect of Tantric practice is Tantric medicine, an ancient methodology for healing both body and soul. Working with the so-called “subtle” body, which includes the various “sheaths” or dimensions of our being from corporeality on up, Tantric medicine employs diet, fasting, breath and energy practices, initiations, visualizations, mantras, mudras (ritual gestures), and yoga, along with a knowledge of the body’s chakras and subtle energy (prana) channels to remove blockages and correct damage. By purifying the body along with the energy, the mind, and the spirit, this process can strengthen the immune system and prevent disease and mental imbalance and instability, and promote longevity, vitality, and spiritual and emotional development.

Tantric medicine can be found today in the Indian Ayurveda tradition as well as in the Buddhist treatises known as the Medical Tantras in the Tibetan tradition. Tibetans say that Buddha appeared in the form of the healing Buddha, or “Bhaishajya-guru Buddha,” who symbolizes the healing or perfecting quality of dharma, and taught the Five Medical Tantras to qualified disciples, from which all of Tibetan medicine is derived.

In the universe of Tibetan Buddhism, the continuum of Tantric spiritual development is seen as having three categories: ground, path, and fruition. The ground is the practitioner, the path is the path of meditation, which purifies this ground, and the fruition is the blissful, unified state that arises as an effect of Tantric practice. So forget IPOs and hot sex. When the body and mind become aligned and peaceful, as with Tantric medicine, that’s fruition in the true sense of the word.

WHAT IS WHITE TANTRA HEALING?

March 4, 2013

The development of White Tantra to Tantric Healing Yoga and White Tantra Healing

The other day I had a Seeker (a guest here) who sat with his eyes closed, submerged in the rhythm of his own breathing, and after a while noticed that he was thinking about his troubled relationship with his father.“I was able to be there, present for the pain,” he said, when the meditation session ended. “To just let it be what it was, without thinking it through.”“Acceptance is what it was,” he continued. “Just letting it be. Not trying to change anything.”

“That’s it,” I said. “That’s it, and that’s big.”

This exercise in focused awareness and mental catch-and-release of emotions has become perhaps the most popular new meditation technique of the past decade. Mindfulness meditation, as it is called, is rooted in the teachings of a fifth-century B.C. Indian prince, Siddhartha Gautama, later known as the Buddha. It is catching the attention of talk therapists of all stripes, including academic researchers, Freudian analysts in private practice and skeptics who see all the hallmarks of another fad.

For years, psychotherapists have worked to relieve suffering by reframing the content of patients’ thoughts, directly altering behavior or helping people gain insight into the subconscious sources of their despair and anxiety. The promise of mindfulness meditation is that it can help patients endure flash floods of emotion during the process — and ultimately alter reactions to daily experience at a level that words cannot reach. “The interest in this has just taken off,” said Zindel Segal, a psychologist at the Center of Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. “And I think a big part of it is that more and more therapists are practicing some form of contemplation themselves and want to bring that into therapy.”

At workshops and conferences across the country, students, counselors and all sorts of therapists throng lectures on mindfulness. The National Institutes of Health is financing more than 50 studies testing mindfulness techniques, up from 3 in 2000, to help relieve stress, soothe addictive cravings, improve attention, lift despair and reduce hot flashes.

Some proponents say Buddha’s arrival in psychotherapy signals a broader opening in the culture at large — a way to access deeper healing, a hidden path revealed.

Yet so far, the evidence that mindfulness meditation helps relieve psychiatric symptoms is thin, and in some cases, it may make people worse, some studies suggest. Many researchers now worry that the enthusiasm for Buddhist practice will run so far ahead of the science that this promising psychological tool could turn into another fad.

“I’m very open to the possibility that this approach could be effective, and it certainly should be studied,” said Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory. “What concerns me is the hype, the talk about changing the world, this allure of the guru that the field of psychotherapy has a tendency to cultivate.”

Buddhist meditation came to psychotherapy from mainstream academic medicine. In the 1970s, a graduate student in molecular biology, Jon Kabat-Zinn, intrigued by Buddhist ideas, adapted a version of its meditative practice that could be easily learned and studied. It was by design a secular version, extracted like a gemstone from the many-layered foundation of Buddhist teaching, which has sprouted a wide variety of sects and spiritual practices and attracted 350 million adherents worldwide.

In transcendental meditation and other types of meditation, practitioners seek to transcend or “lose” themselves. The goal of mindfulness meditation was different, to foster an awareness of every sensation as it unfolds in the moment.

Dr. Kabat-Zinn taught the practice to people suffering from chronic pain at the University of Massachusetts medical school. In the 1980s he published a series of studies demonstrating that two-hour courses, given once a week for eight weeks, reduced chronic pain more effectively than treatment as usual.

Word spread, discreetly at first. “I think that back then, other researchers had to be very careful when they talked about this, because they didn’t want to be seen as New Age weirdos,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn, now a professor emeritus of medicine at the University of Massachusetts, said in an interview. “So they didn’t call it mindfulness or meditation. “After a while, we put enough studies out there that people became more comfortable with it.”

One person who noticed early on was Marsha Linehan, a psychololgy professor at the University of Washington who was trying to treat deeply troubled patients with histories of suicidal behavior. “Trying to treat these patients with some change-based behavior therapy just made them worse, not better,” Dr. Linehan said in an interview. “With the really hard stuff, you need something else, something that allows people to tolerate these very strong emotions.”

In the 1990s, Dr. Linehan published a series of studies finding that a therapy that incorporated Zen Buddhist mindfulness, “radical acceptance,” practiced by therapist and patient significantly cut the risk of hospitalization and suicide attempts in the high-risk patients.

Finally, in 2000, a group of researchers including Dr. Segal in Toronto, J. Mark G. Williams at the University of Wales and John D. Teasdale at the Medical Research Council in England published a study that found that eight weekly sessions of mindfulness halved the rate of relapse in people with three or more episodes of depression.

With Dr. Kabat-Zinn, they wrote a popular book, “The Mindful Way Through Depression.” Psychotherapists’ curiosity about mindfulness, once tentative, turned into “this feeding frenzy, of sorts, that we have going on now,” Dr. Kabat-Zinn said.

Mindfulness meditation is easy to describe. Sit in a comfortable position, eyes closed, preferably with the back upright and unsupported. Relax and take note of body sensations, sounds and moods. Notice them without judgment. Let the mind settle into the rhythm of breathing. If it wanders (and it will), gently redirect attention to the breath. Stay with it for at least 10 minutes.
After mastering control of attention, some therapists say, a person can turn, mentally, to face a threatening or troubling thought — about, say, a strained relationship with a parent — and learn simply to endure the anger or sadness and let it pass, without lapsing into rumination or trying to change the feeling, a move that often backfires.

One woman, a doctor who had been in therapy for years to manage bouts of disabling anxiety, recently began seeing Gaea Logan, a therapist in Austin, Tex., who incorporates mindfulness meditation into her practice. This patient had plenty to worry about, including a mentally ill child, a divorce and what she described as a “harsh internal voice,” Ms. Logan said.

After practicing mindfulness meditation, she continued to feel anxious at times but told Ms. Logan, “I can stop and observe my feelings and thoughts and have compassion for myself.”

Steven Hayes, a psychologist at the University of Nevada at Reno, has developed a talk therapy called Acceptance Commitment Therapy, or ACT, based on a similar, Buddha-like effort to move beyond language to change fundamental psychological processes.

“It’s a shift from having our mental health defined by the content of our thoughts,” Dr. Hayes said, “to having it defined by our relationship to that content — and changing that relationship by sitting with, noticing and becoming disentangled from our definition of ourselves.”

For all these hopeful signs, the science behind mindfulness is in its infancy. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which researches health practices, last year published a comprehensive review of meditation studies, including T.M., Zen and mindfulness practice, for a wide variety of physical and mental problems. The study found that over all, the research was too sketchy to draw conclusions.

A recent review by Canadian researchers, focusing specifically on mindfulness meditation, concluded that it did “not have a reliable effect on depression and anxiety.”

Therapists who incorporate mindfulness practices do not agree when the meditation is most useful, either. Some say Buddhist meditation is most useful for patients with moderate emotional problems. Others, like Dr. Linehan, insist that patients in severe mental distress are the best candidates for mindfulness.

A case in point is mindfulness-based therapy to prevent a relapse into depression. The treatment significantly reduced the risk of relapse in people who have had three or more episodes of depression. But it may have had the opposite effect on people who had one or two previous episodes, two studies suggest.

The mindfulness treatment “may be contraindicated for this group of patients,” S. Helen Ma and Dr. Teasdale of the Medical Research Council concluded in a 2004 study of the therapy.

Since mindfulness meditation may have different effects on different mental struggles, the challenge for its proponents will be to specify where it is most effective — and soon, given how popular the practice is becoming.

The question, said Linda Barnes, an associate professor of family medicine and pediatrics at the Boston College School of Medicine, is not whether mindfulness meditation will become a sophisticated therapeutic technique or lapse into self-help cliché.

“The answer to that question is yes to both,” Dr. Barnes said.
The real issue, most researchers agree, is whether the science will keep pace and help people distinguish the mindful variety from the mindless.

A variety of meditative practices have been studied by Western researchers for their effects on mental and physical health.

Tai Chi

An active exercise, sometimes called moving meditation, involving extremely slow, continuous movement and extreme concentration. The movements are to balance the vital energy of the body but have no religious significance.

Studies are mixed, some finding it can reduce blood pressure in patients, and others finding no effect. There is some evidence that it can help elderly people improve balance.

Transcendental Meditation

Meditators sit comfortably, eyes closed, and breathe naturally. They repeat and concentrate on the mantra, a word or sound chosen by the instructor to achieve state of deep, transcendent absorption. Practitioners “lose” themselves, untouched by day-to-day concerns. Studies suggest it can reduce blood pressure in some patients.

Mindfulness Meditation

Practitioners find a comfortable position, close the eyes and focus first on breathing, passively observing it. If a stray thought or emotion enters the mind, they allow it to pass and return attention to the breath. The aim is to achieve focused awareness on what is happening moment to moment.

Studies find that it can help manage chronic pain. The findings are mixed on substance abuse. Two trials suggest that it can cut the rate of relapse in people who have had three or more bouts of depression.

Yoga

Enhanced awareness through breathing techniques and specific postures. Schools vary widely, aiming to achieve total absorption in the present and a release from ordinary thoughts. Studies are mixed, but evidence shows it can reduce stress.

Though today, Yoga is mainly associated with the practice of physical postures and a few basic breathing techniques, there is more depth to this powerful discipline than has existed for more than two thousand years. It may seem trivial if so much importance were given to Yoga, over such a long period of time, if all it was, was a bunch of postures, that addressed only the physical needs of an individual.

On the contrary, Tantric Healing Yoga is a holistic healing discipline that addresses the needs of the whole person through continuous adaptation of its many tools to suit the student’s unique and changing needs. This is why, with the compassionate guidance of a skilled teacher, Tantric Healing Yoga is as appropriate for the young as it is for the old, as appropriate for the stroke victim lying immobile in a hospital bed, as it is for the flexible, athletic dancer. This is why it may be said that Tantric Healing Yoga is for everyone. It offers a wide range of tools which include physical practices, special breathing techniques, powerful meditative practices, symbolic gestures and use of vocal sounds, guided self inquiry practices and more.

When appropriately administered, Tantric Healing Yoga practices may be used in a wide variety of purposes such as

* in promoting and maintaining physical and mental health
* in serving as a complimentary system of holistic health care – both preventative, and curative
* in relieving stress and promoting efficiency
* in aiding to face and deal with challenging life situations
* in providing and guiding us in spiritual transformation

The aim of Tantric Healing Yoga is to promote health and facilitate healing in a holistic manner, by allowing the healer to design and teach appropriate and unique practices that empower the students in their recovery.

A Holistic Process

Tantric Healing Yoga does not look at our individual system as one that is made up of parts. Rather it looks at our human being as one holistic entity that is made up different dimensions (physical body, breath, mental, personality traits, and emotions) that are mutually dependent on and mutually influence one another. It propounds that an illness at the body level, need not exist because of a cause in the body level, but could also manifest because of a problem in another dimension of the body.

For example, it is now proven that one possible factor that could contribute to heart attacks could be stress. And one cause stress could come because of emotionally unstable relationships. Thus an emotional cause may manifest as a physical symptom. The contrary could also be true. So are innumerable other possibilities. Thus Tantric Healing Yoga Therapy teaches us that, in choosing and designing practices for healing, we must understand such dynamics in the student (patient), before coming up with a unique solution.

Understanding this situation, the ancient masters presented tools of Tantric Healing Yoga, which were able to influence multiple dimensions of our human system, rather than just one. Thus a practice administered at the body level, may not only have an impact on the body, but has the potency to impact the other dimensions as well. Similarly a deep meditative practice may not only influence our mind or emotions, but may also have an influence on our physical body. Thus a good Tantric Healing Yoga practice empowers the whole human system, rather than parts of it. This is the beauty of Tantric Healing Yoga, and hence its potency in healing. Thus a Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist needs to be competent in the wide range of Tantric Healing Yoga’s tools, rather than just a few of them.

Some of the common tools used in Tantric Healing Yoga therapy include:

· postures (asanas)

· special breathing techniques (pranayama)

· meditative practices (dhyanam)

· social attitudes (yama)

· guided self inquiry practices (svadhyaya)

· symbolic gestures (mudra)

· use of vocal sounds (mantra)

· dietary recommendations (ahara niyama)

· lifestyle changes (vihara niyama)

. Tantric Touch Healing/Massage (shaktipat)

This list is not comprehensive, but is indicative of what is possible in Tantric Healing Yoga therapy. Also, often these tools may not be taught in isolation, but may be grouped together to come up with an effective practice.

An Individual Process

To make healing effective and potent, we must understand and interact with patients individually, rather than prescribe practices in groups, though some exceptional situations may even allow that. When we interact with students privately we can understand their individual illnesses, their causes and what are the individual abilities of the student, which can help us design practices that will be the perfect fit for them. Can a doctor prescribe the same pill to patients irrespective of their complaint? Similarly a Tantric Healing Yoga therapist has to interact with the student privately to help heal them. Otherwise it will not be an effective process.

A Self Empowering Process

A powerful component of the healing process in Tantric Healing Yoga is that it empowers the student to heal themselves. Unlike in surgery, where a surgeon operates on a passive and often unconscious patient, or massage therapy, where the therapist works on a patient, in Tantric Healing Yoga the student has an active and often complete responsibility in the healing process. The Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist’s role is limited to one of understanding the student’s illness, and teaching appropriate practices that the student will have to do it themselves. An important job is also to review and verify the appropriateness of the practice.

Since much of the healing happens due to the regular practice by the student, a key responsibility of the Tantric Healing Yoga Therapist is to inspire and motivate them to maintain the practice. This is often the key to the success of a good healing process.

What I Offer here at White Tantra Healing …

Healing and Wellness

Tantric Healing Yoga offers developmental and therapeutic Tantric Healing Yoga programs that address the needs of the whole person according to the individual’s capability and interest and which specifically seek to empower each Seeker in their own healing and wellness processes.

Personalized Individual Tantric Healing Yoga programs

I offer one-on-one consultations and classes.

I design and monitor a course of practice that directly addresses the student’s specific needs, abilities, situation and therapeutic and/or wellness goals.

Initial Consultation:

First Session – 60 Minutes initial intake, consultation and program

Second Session – 60 Minutes – Follow Up

Subsequent Follow-Up Sessions:

60 Minutes to Two Hours (depending on each individual)

In preparation, please wear loose and comfortable clothing and we will provide anything you might need.

All sessions are held in my sacred space in my home near the Indian River in the Cocoa/Rockledge area of Florida.
EMAIL ME FOR MORE INFO: Kathryn@DakiniKathryn.Com

Tantra is a spiritual path for integrating body, mind and soul. It differs from other paths in its honoring of the body, using the senses, sensuality, and feelings to help you evolve spiritually.Tantra assists you in realizing your full potential as a human being. If you choose to live from the Tantric perspective, you will transform your life. You will discover bliss.You may apply Tantric practices and principles to many areas of life – to relationship and loving, spiritual practice and lifestyle, physical and emotional well-being.

The practices and rituals of Tantra, both spiritual and sensual, work to create the conditions necessary for love to flourish and endure. When we achieve states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection, love emerges and opens the heart. To bring about the conditions that generate and sustain love, we can learn to rely upon Tantric practices to create more of these positive energy states. Tantra, therefore, is not just something to do in our bedrooms, but rather a complete way of life.As a Tantrika, I follow regular practices to quiet my mind, open my awareness to sensation, raise my energy vibration, and cultivate a sacred attitude towards myself, others, and events in my life. As part of my practice, each day I create a time to connect with my body and spirit. I use the Ipsalu Tantra method to attune to my inherent Bliss vibration: I awaken my body, still my mind, arouse my shakti energy, draw that lifeforce into my higher chakras, and enjoy a meditation where I connect with what is present and what I want to create in my life. By the end of my practice my body is buzzing with blissful vibration. I feel spacious, centered, grounded, and ready to bring my vibrant energy with me out into my day.Cultivating states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection is not always easy. A lifetime of hurts and other negative experiences have gradually limited our ability to be present and to express the essence of who we really are, fully and freely. We slowly become cut off from our feelings and the ability to experience our sensual creative energy in a connected, joyful, loving way.

In a subtle, gentle, yet powerful way, Tantric loving brings healing. It breaks up and washes away residues of our past that hold us back from limitless love and intimacy. Tantra teaches us not only how to be great lovers, but how to be great healers for one another as well.

Tantra represents a unique paradigm for conscious living and loving. It offers a passionate and expansive way of life for those seeking to connect with their sensuality in a positive, heart-centered way, a way that celebrates freedom of spirit and body alike.

In principal, the Tantric Practitioner learns to focus and amplify life-force energy (“Chi” or “Prana”) by combining various breathing and body awareness exercises. When the practitioner holds a high vibrational field of life-force energy around an affected area, she or he facilitates healing through the process of resonance and entrainment.

Everything vibrates. When two things vibrate at different frequencies, there is a tendency for the vibrations to come together. Most often, the slower vibration will rise to match the faster frequency. There are many kinds of examples of entrainment: over time, similarly tuned electric oscillators will match frequencies; disembodied animal hearts when placed near each other and kept alive in a lab will all beat in unison; and when women share a dormitory, over months they will often start menstruating at the same time.

Tantric Healing uses resonance and entrainment to facilitate healing. The practitioner learns to raise his or her vibration and create a high level of energy. If that energy field is placed around an area of pain, stress, inflammation, or disease, that part of the body will entrain to the higher frequency and allow one’s own biological intelligence to do whatever healing it deems necessary.

Tantric Healing provides healing energy for the practitioner as well as for the person seeking healing. Using Tantric breathing techniques and body awareness exercises, the practitioner can hold an extraordinarily high vibration, influencing the person in need of healing to match the vibration of the practitioner. The practitioner will not become drained from doing the work. Most often, the practitioner feels emotionally uplifted as a result!

I show people that they can actually dramatically change the taste of wine by directing energy into it; we’re definitely affecting the very physics and chemistry of matter. I see that in the future, when research has been done, life force energy will be appreciated as being real … and powerfully impacting physics, chemistry, biology, medicine and psychology. Our world will forever be different as people realize that their love has impact and their love has value.

Healing is a fascinating process which is generally very poorly understood. While many people think they can heal other people, it is of utmost importance to realize that all healing is self-healing. I see myself as being simply a “catalyst” for self-healing. Cells desire to be well, and given the right energetic, emotional and nutritional environments, they will do just that. The body has an extraordinary intelligence and ability to heal itself. My favorite definition of a healer is someone who was sick and got well; a great healer is someone who was very sick and got well quickly.

Origins of Tantra

Tantra is a spiritual teaching and philosophy that originated in India well over 2000 years ago. It is still relevant today.

It originated in ancient Vedic times, in matriarchal cultures such as that of the Indus Valley, and in practices revolving around the worship of the Goddess.

The essence of Tantra has taken many forms of expression and appears in virtually every culture in history, e.g., Chinese Taoist Tantra, Native American Quodoshka.

Tantra is a timeless phenomenon as well as a global one. Even today in the West it satisfies many of our most essential needs: love, connection, intimacy, play, harmony and balance, inspiration, relaxation, celebration, physical and emotional well-being and spiritual fulfillment.

The Word Tantra

Tantra comes from the ancient Sanskrit words tanoti which means “to expand” and trayati which means “liberation.” This implies that you can be liberated by expanding your consciousness.

Another definition of the word Tantra is “web” or “to weave.” Tantra is an interweaving of the energies of many levels of consciousness from the mundane, to the most erotic, to the most profound.

Tantra is generally divided into two main streams: Red Tantra and White Tantra.

White Tantra or Tantra of the Right Hand (Dakshina Marga) involves the meditative techniques of Tantra and is essentially a celibate, ascetic path.

The interrelated notions of the Goddess, Kundalini, the Subtle Body, and the Chakra System are central to Tantra and its aims.

The Goddess

Tantra reveres The Goddess. The Divine Feminine.

In ancient times, The Goddess was worshiped as the embodiment of eroticism and the source of all creation. Every woman was seen as Shakti – The Goddess incarnate. Each woman is a Shakti. Shakti is the Hindu Goddess, or archetype, of the divine feminine.

Shakti also refers to a particular quality of energy that is feminine and rises upwards in the body, such as earth energy. It was worshipped in ancient India as the primal energy that created the cosmos. Shakti energy, is creative life-force energy.

Re-awakening the Goddess is central to modern Tantra. Although both the masculine and the feminine energies are equally important, the extra focus on the feminine is necessary in order to counterbalance the predominant masculine energy of our present culture. Daily life in this busy world does not encourage women or men to recognize or acknowledge the Goddess, but rekindling a woman’s energy brings forth her Goddess nature. Tantric practices allow the Goddess in every woman to emerge. Both the woman and her partner benefit. The free flow of a woman’s energy activates her shakti, creating an atmosphere for spiritual enlightenment. Her pleasure and desire for lovemaking will increase and may even surpass the pleasure potential and desire of the man.

In Tantra, I honor the Goddess. I enjoy teaching these techniques and initiating those new to Tantra into the art of honoring the divine feminine.

Kundalini

The main purpose of the tantric path is to activate Kundalini energy in the body. Those who achieve this awakening live in an ongoing state of bliss.

Kundalini is the most powerful and refined energetic force available to us as human beings.

The term means “she who is coiled” and is traditionally depicted as a serpent, coiled and sleeping at the base of the spine. When awakened, it begins to uncoil as it climbs up through the chakras to the crown. For thousands of years, the serpent has been used in many cultures to symbolize rising consciousness.

A minimal flow of Kundalini exists in everyone already. It is the energy that animates the body and the physical senses and provides a base level of consciousness. As the flow increases, we begin to access higher realms of consciousness into the spiritual dimensions.

Kundalini is activated by the energy of Shakti energy. Shakti is generated through conscious lovemaking or specific yogic techniques designed to activate this energy. The tantric path sees our energy as an important expression of Kundalini.

A full Kundalini awakening occurs only when a perfect balance of masculine and feminine exists in the body. Maintaining a balance between these energies is the essence of Tantric practice.

Like a cobra which has cast its coils
spiraling conch-like three-times-
and-a-half round Shiva, her mouth
laid on that other mouth
which leads to bliss,
the enchantress
of the world,
slender as a lotus stem,
bright as a lightning-flash,
lies sleeping,
breathing softly out and in,
murmuring poems
in sweetest meters,
humming like a drunken bee
in the petals of
the muladhara lotus,
how brightly her light shines

–Satcakra-nirupana TantraFor a more in-depth discussion of Kundalini and how it works, refer to the excellent chapter on the subject in Bodhi Avinasha’s The Ipsalu Formula: A Method for Tantra Bliss or Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s complete book Kundalini Tantra.The Subtle Body

Since Tantric practices directly influence the energy of the subtle body, a basic understanding of esoteric anatomy is useful.

The Western view of anatomy encompasses systems of the body that we can see: the skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, etc. Eastern medicine (i.e. Ayurveda, Chinese medicine) teaches that a subtle body also pervades our anatomy.

The most important aspect of the subtle body is the system of energy centers, known as chakras. The subtle body also contains several hundred thousand energy channels, called nadis. There are three principle subtle channels, the sushumna (central), the ida (left channel) and pingala (right channel). The subtle body is also called the energy body.

If you have ever done yoga or received acupuncture, you have already experienced the awakening of your subtle body.

As kundalini awakens, it rises up through the sushumna, moving through the main chakras of the subtle body. If there are energy blocks along this central energy “highway” the kundalini will not ascend through all of the chakras.

A heightened awareness of your energy body translates to intensified levels of sensation and pleasure. When your energy body is awake, even the slightest touch may arouse great bliss. I can teach you how to awaken the energy body of your beloved, inspiring in him or her unknown delights!

The Chakra System

The chakras are concentrated vortices of energy within the subtle body, centers of consciousness. They are way-stations along the upward path of the Kundalini. Our bodies actually have many chakras, both big (e.g. at the crown of the head) and small (e.g. at the pads of our fingers). “The chakras” refer to the seven main chakras “situated” along the axis of the spine. All the chakras have the potential to become powerful erogenous zones!

Although we cannot see or feel the chakras with our physical senses, they are evident in the shape of our physical bodies and in the way we think, feel, and handle life’s situations.

Sometimes these energy centers become clogged or blocked due to negative experiences, physical pain, emotional traumas, social programming, cultural conditioning, limiting belief systems, or adverse life conditions. Blocks result in an incomplete or unbalanced experience of life and limit the expression of our own true life force energy. If you have ever experienced a “knot in your throat,” for example, due to holding back tearful emotional expression, then you have experienced a block in the 5th chakra. This block acts as a limit, restricting the full expression of your inner world to the outer. Can you recall a time when you have experienced a “heavy heart,” a block in the 4th chakra? Grief, resulting from hurts to the heart, blocks the heart’s natural lightness and expansiveness; the heart becomes heavy and closed. A heavy heart prevents us from engaging in nourishing, loving relationships, and our life may feel incomplete as a result.

Awakening and opening all of our chakras allow us to express ourselves as unique, whole, and fully-realized individuals.

Tantric practice provides means to fully awaken and open the chakras, with particular emphasis on the second, fourth chakras and sixth chakras (sex, heart, and spirit), integral to our experience as expansive, joyful beings.

Ipsalu Tantra Kriya Yoga is a unique approach within the variety of Tantric paths. Faithful to ancient Tantra’s original purposes and researched techniques, it is an adapted system to meet the interests of people in the western world at the present evolutionary level. Ipsalu Tantra is a profound and playful way for learning to live in bliss. What distinguishes Ipsalu is the focus on realizing your true Self, attention to emotional flow, and the skillfully designed sets of yogic techniques for safely activating your kundalini (most powerful and creative) energy.

“Ipsalu” in Sanskrit means “transcending illusions of desire.” By freeing and integrating ego desires, you realize your bliss body. Frustration, separation, boredom and fear melt away for they are simply clouds over the magnificence that is present inside you. The union of sex, love and pure awareness within your body, with a beloved, in each moment, with everyone, with all of existence is indescribable joy. It is the essence of your nature.

What is the difference between “Tantric Touch”, “Quantum Touch” and “Reiki” Healing . . .

TANTRIC TOUCH

Tantric Touch (TT) is a type of healing energy whereby the therapist moves his or her hands over the patient’s “energy field,” allegedly directing the flow of chi or prana so the patient can heal. TT is based on the belief that each living thing has a “life energy field” which extends beyond the surface of the body and generates an aura. This energy field can become unbalanced, misaligned, obstructed, or out of tune. Energy healers manipulate this energy field by making movements that resemble massaging the air a few inches above the surface of the patient’s body. Energy healers also think that they can transfer some of their own life energy to the patient by actually touching or “laying on of hands” upon the patient. These manipulations allegedly restore the energy field to a state of balance or harmony, to a proper alignment, or they unblock a clog in the field or transfer life energy from healer to patient. This restoration of integrity to the field is thought to make it possible for the body to heal itself.

TT has no scientific basis but it does have a history, though TT is apparently being practiced worldwide by all kinds of “alternative” healers and laypersons in addition to a few Tibetan Tantric Medicine Buddha healers.

Practitioners admit that there has never been any scientific detection of a human energy field. This, they say, is because of the inadequacies of our present technology. One with a trained sense, however, is allegedly able to detect the human energy field and assess its integrity. Despite the obvious metaphysical basis for this, defenders of TT claim it is scientific because it is based on quantum physics. A grant proposal to study therapeutic touch on burn victims asserts: “Quantum theory states that all of reality is made up of energy fields and that over 99% of the universe is simply space.” Another defender claims that the underlying principles upon which this technique is based include acceptance of the Einstein paradigm of a complex, energetic field-like universe (i.e., the existence of a Life energy flowing through and around all of us). Further, if life is characterized by an interchange of various qualities of energy, it can be assumed that any form of obstruction — either within the organism or between the organism and the environment — is contrary to Nature’s tendencies and therefore unhealthy. In practicing Tantric Touch, one attempts to influence this energy imbalance towards health to restore the integrity of this field. In this way the TT practitioner does not so much “heal” the patient as facilitate the patient’s own healing processes, by gently manipulating the body’s energy flow and adjusting it as a whole. With the achievement of balance in mind, body and spirit, we have a truly holistic healing.

Why so many believers?

One might wonder why a group of otherwise intelligent, highly trained would be attracted to something like TT?

Those who practice Tantric Touch report reaping benefits for themselves. For example, the ability of TT to reduce burnout in health care professionals has been well-documented.

The Tantric Touch/Quantum Touch/Reiki therapist has powers physicians don’t have: secret, mystical powers which only the practitioner can measure. Tantra is passed down from teacher to pupil, who then becomes a teacher themself. You get a lot of positive feedback. You can’t hurt anyone because you are not invading their body with drugs or surgical instruments. You network and those in your network feed off of each other’s enthusiasm. There is a great deal of communal reinforcement. Many patients swear they can feel your good work.

Our minds release 1000 thoughts per wink of an eye. Some of these thoughts get lost in the unconscious, and some get stuck in the subconscious and affect the conscious mind. These thoughts become feelings, emotions, desires, multi-realities or fantasies. Instead of mastering our mind, often our mind and thoughts direct us, which can cause impulsive decisions, poor communication and self-imposed stress.

White Tantric Healing Yoga enables you to break through these subconscious blocks, so you can have a more enjoyable life. In the shortest time, you can experience release from a lot of the burden you carry in your mind.

When you see and act on each moment with clarity, you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your life can change. Your mind, body, and soul can act together as one. This is the path to personal freedom and awareness, and will bring more success to every area of your life.

Envision the energy of the universe as both parallel and perpendicular in nature, like a cloth woven together. As a cloth becomes stronger when it is stretched on the diagonal, so the White Tantric Healing Yoga diagonal, or ‘Z’ energy is stronger. This energy, when directed by the VajraYogini, cuts through the blocks that are stuck in the subconscious mind.

Using the diagonal energy, the Tantric VajraYogini connects her subtle body to the subtle bodies of the participants through the course facilitator. This works the same way as a worldwide telephone system that relies on satellites and electromagnetic energy in order to connect two parties.

White Tantric Healing Yoga should not be confused with black or red tantric. Those forms of yoga also transform energy, but in a different way and for different purposes. Black tantric directs the energy to manipulate another human being and red tantric directs the energy solely for sexual purposes.

White Tantric Healing Yoga is done in pairs as a group meditation. You sit facing the VajraYogini and follow her instructions.

Each Tantric Healing Yoga session consists of between six and eight kriyas. A kriya is a meditation incorporating:

Sometimes the kriyas are accompanied by music. These kriyas vary in length from thirty-one to sixty-two minutes. There are breaks between each kriya.

The environment is peaceful, and the atmosphere is friendly, supportive, and uplifting.

QUANTUM TOUCH

Reiki is enhanced by Quantum-Touch. Quantum-Touch has no attunements or symbols. Quantum-Touch is a natural and innate skill that can be learned with simple breathing and body awareness techniques. These techniques allow the Quantum-Touch practitioner to powerfully focus and amplify the life-force energy.

Practitioners of Quantum-Touch don’t become drained or tired from doing sessions. When I interviewed Reiki masters, about 40% reported that they had occasionally felt energy going up their arm, or had become tired and drained.

This is a function of the practitioner entraining or matching to the seeker’s vibration. Without a skill to hold a high vibration, Reiki practitioners may at times become drained.

I’ve taught Quantum-Touch to numerous chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists and osteopaths who have been astounded to observe rapid structural realignment, reduction of inflammation, and other benefits.

Reiki masters who have taken my workshops have nicknamed Quantum-Touch, “Reiki empowerment” or “turbo charging the Reiki.” I got a laugh when one of my students wrote in the review of my workshop that Quantum-Touch was “like Reiki on steroids.” Both systems use the same life-forced energy. The Quantum-Touch practitioner learns to focus the energy like a laser, which takes concentration, body awareness and breath.

I am a Reiki Master and have had success with Reiki, but have found Quantum Touch to be very powerful and show results much more quickly. I have worked on two women who can feel the energy as it flows through their bodies. Their response has been that Reiki comes from without and Quantum Touch comes from within. I can feel the energy field surrounding people and can say from direct experience that Quantum Touch (especially after the Supercharging workshop) expands the individuals energy field at least tenfold, which would help account for the breakthroughs in health.

CHAKRAS

Chakras are our energy centers. They are the openings for life energy to flow into and out of our aura. Their function is to vitalize the physical body and to bring about the development of our self-consciousness. They are associated with our physical, mental and emotional interactions. There are seven major chakras. The aura is often referred to as the eighth chakra. The first chakra (root) actually hangs outside of your body. It is located between your thighs, about halfway between your knees and your physical body. The seven chakra (crown) is located on the top of your head. The remaining chakras, (sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, and third eye), are aligned in sequence along your spine, neck, and skull. Individually, your chakras look similar to funnels with petal-like openings.

Chakras are invisible to the human eye, but they can be perceived intuitively by trained energyworkers.

Evaluating the Health of Your Chakras

Having your chakras evaluated by a trained practitioner is a good way to get a better understanding of how your body functions on an energetic level. An energyworker trained in reading chakras will be able to tell you which chakras are functioning poorly and which chakras are working overtime. When one or two chakras are performing at a reduced level, the remaining chakras have to pick up the slack. Having a non-functioning chakra can effectively “blow out” an otherwise healthy chakra. Not good.

Keeping Your Chakras in Proper Alignment

When your back or hip gets out of alignment you will make a trip to the chiropractor’s office for a spinal adjustment. Similarly, a healer trained in manipulating the energy flow of energy can assist you in getting misaligned chakras back to functioning properly. It may take one or more appointments with a practitioner to get your energy levels up to par. Afterwards, there are a variety of healthy actions you can take to help keep them open, allowing your energy to flow naturally.

REIKI

Reiki (pronounced Ray Key) is a combination of two Japanese words rei and ki meaning universal life energy. Reiki is an ancient laying-on of hands healing technique that uses the life force energy to heal, balancing the subtle energies within our bodies. Reiki addresses physical, emotional, mental and spiritual imbalances. This healing art is an effective delivery system. The Reiki practitioner serves as a vessel that supplies healing energies where they are most needed. Reiki’s ki-energies flow out of the practitioner’s body through the palms of the hands while they are touching the recipient’s body.

What to Expect During a Reiki Treatment

You will be asked to lay down on a massage table, couch, or bed.

You will be fully clothed except for your shoes. You may also be asked to remove or loosen your belt so that your breathing is not restricted in any way. It is best to choose loose-fitting garments to wear on the day of your appointment. Wearing natural fabrics is best (cotton, wool, or linen). You may also be asked to remove any jewelry (rings, braceletes, pendants, etc.) prior to the session, so consider leaving these items at home.

Relaxing Atmosphere

Reiki practitioners will often create a relaxing atmosphere for their Reiki sessions, setting the mood with the use of dimmed lights, meditative music, or bubbling water fountains. Some practitioners prefer to be in a place that is completely silent, without distraction of music of any kind, to conduct their Reiki sessions in.

Healing Touch

The Reiki practitioner will place his hands lightly on different parts of your body. Some practitioners will follow a predetermined sequence of hand placements, allowing their hands to rest on each body placement for 2 to 5 minutes before moving on to the next. Empathic practitioners will freely move their hands in no particular order to the areas where they “feel” Reiki is most needed. Some Reiki practitioners do not touch their seekers. They will hover their lifted palms a few inches above the reclined body. Either way, Reiki energies flow where they are suppose to. Reiki is a smart energy that automatically flows where the imbalances are in your body regardless of where the practitioner’s hands are placed.

Phantom Hands

Because Reiki energies flow to where they are most needed there is a Reiki phenomenon called “phantom hands” that you may or may not experience. Phantom hands feel as if the Reiki practitioner’s hands are touching one part of your body when they are actually elsewhere. For example, you may be able to see that the healer’s hands are actually placed on your stomach, but you could swear that hands are touching your legs. Or, you may feel as if several pairs of hands are on your body at the same time as if several people are in the room with you.

Becoming a Reiki Practitioner

Reiki is traditionally taught in three levels. Levels I and II are typically taught in one day class (8 hours) or over a weekend period (16 hours). Level III is generally a more intensive course of study and will take a longer commitment. Class time involves an initiation ritual called an attunement and learning the hand placements for self treatments as well as treating others.

Reiki Controversies and Myths

The healing community has come a long way in demystifying the cloak of secrecy that once surrounded the teaching of Reiki in the western hemisphere. As a result, inaccuracies that were born out of the teaching being hidden away have been chipped away layer by layer. However, some of these Reiki Myths continue to grow organically.

Reiki was first introduced to Canada and the United States in the 1970s. Hawayo Takata, a Hawaii native of Japanese descent, brought her knowledge of Reiki to the mainland through oral teachings. Reiki teachings and stories were passed down from teacher to student by word of mouth for several years. No wonder the stories got jumbled up!

“TANTRIC TOUCH”

February 27, 2013

Tantric Touch (TT) is a type of healing energy whereby the therapist moves his or her hands over the patient’s “energy field,” allegedly directing the flow of chi or prana so the patient can heal. TT is based on the belief that each living thing has a “life energy field” which extends beyond the surface of the body and generates an aura. This energy field can become unbalanced, misaligned, obstructed, or out of tune. Energy healers manipulate this energy field by making movements that resemble massaging the air a few inches above the surface of the patient’s body. Energy healers also think that they can transfer some of their own life energy to the patient by actually touching or “laying on of hands” upon the patient. These manipulations allegedly restore the energy field to a state of balance or harmony, to a proper alignment, or they unblock a clog in the field or transfer life energy from healer to patient. This restoration of integrity to the field is thought to make it possible for the body to heal itself.

TT has no scientific basis but it does have a history, though TT is apparently being practiced worldwide by all kinds of “alternative” healers and laypersons in addition to a few Tibetan Tantric Medicine Buddha healers.

Practitioners admit that there has never been any scientific detection of a human energy field. This, they say, is because of the inadequacies of our present technology. One with a trained sense, however, is allegedly able to detect the human energy field and assess its integrity. Despite the obvious metaphysical basis for this, defenders of TT claim it is scientific because it is based on quantum physics. A grant proposal to study therapeutic touch on burn victims asserts: “Quantum theory states that all of reality is made up of energy fields and that over 99% of the universe is simply space.” Another defender claims that the underlying principles upon which this technique is based include acceptance of the Einstein paradigm of a complex, energetic field-like universe (i.e., the existence of a Life energy flowing through and around all of us). Further, if life is characterized by an interchange of various qualities of energy, it can be assumed that any form of obstruction — either within the organism or between the organism and the environment — is contrary to Nature’s tendencies and therefore unhealthy. In practicing Tantric Touch, one attempts to influence this energy imbalance towards health to restore the integrity of this field. In this way the TT practitioner does not so much “heal” the patient as facilitate the patient’s own healing processes, by gently manipulating the body’s energy flow and adjusting it as a whole. With the achievement of balance in mind, body and spirit, we have a truly holistic healing.

Why so many believers?

One might wonder why a group of otherwise intelligent, highly trained would be attracted to something like TT?

Those who practice Tantric Touch report reaping benefits for themselves. For example, the ability of TT to reduce burnout in health care professionals has been well-documented.

The Tantric Touch/Quantum Touch/Reiki therapist has powers physicians don’t have: secret, mystical powers which only the practitioner can measure. Tantra is passed down from teacher to pupil, who then becomes a teacher themself. You get a lot of positive feedback. You can’t hurt anyone because you are not invading their body with drugs or surgical instruments. You network and those in your network feed off of each other’s enthusiasm. There is a great deal of communal reinforcement. Many patients swear they can feel your good work.

Our minds release 1000 thoughts per wink of an eye. Some of these thoughts get lost in the unconscious, and some get stuck in the subconscious and affect the conscious mind. These thoughts become feelings, emotions, desires, multi-realities or fantasies. Instead of mastering our mind, often our mind and thoughts direct us, which can cause impulsive decisions, poor communication and self-imposed stress.

White Tantric Healing Yoga enables you to break through these subconscious blocks, so you can have a more enjoyable life. In the shortest time, you can experience release from a lot of the burden you carry in your mind.

When you see and act on each moment with clarity, you can gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your life can change. Your mind, body, and soul can act together as one. This is the path to personal freedom and awareness, and will bring more success to every area of your life.

Envision the energy of the universe as both parallel and perpendicular in nature, like a cloth woven together. As a cloth becomes stronger when it is stretched on the diagonal, so the White Tantric Healing Yoga diagonal, or ‘Z’ energy is stronger. This energy, when directed by the VajraYogini, cuts through the blocks that are stuck in the subconscious mind.

Using the diagonal energy, the Tantric VajraYogini connects her subtle body to the subtle bodies of the participants through the course facilitator. This works the same way as a worldwide telephone system that relies on satellites and electromagnetic energy in order to connect two parties.

White Tantric Healing Yoga should not be confused with black or red tantric. Those forms of yoga also transform energy, but in a different way and for different purposes. Black tantric directs the energy to manipulate another human being and red tantric directs the energy solely for sexual purposes.

White Tantric Healing Yoga is done in pairs as a group meditation. You sit facing the VajraYogini and follow her instructions.

Each Tantric Healing Yoga session consists of between six and eight kriyas. A kriya is a meditation incorporating:

Sometimes the kriyas are accompanied by music. These kriyas vary in length from thirty-one to sixty-two minutes. There are breaks between each kriya.

The environment is peaceful, and the atmosphere is friendly, supportive, and uplifting.

QUANTUM TOUCH

Reiki is enhanced by Quantum-Touch. Quantum-Touch has no attunements or symbols. Quantum-Touch is a natural and innate skill that can be learned with simple breathing and body awareness techniques. These techniques allow the Quantum-Touch practitioner to powerfully focus and amplify the life-force energy.

Practitioners of Quantum-Touch don’t become drained or tired from doing sessions. When I interviewed Reiki masters, about 40% reported that they had occasionally felt energy going up their arm, or had become tired and drained.

This is a function of the practitioner entraining or matching to the client’s vibration. Without a skill to hold a high vibration, Reiki practitioners may at times become drained.

I’ve taught Quantum-Touch to numerous chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists and osteopaths who have been astounded to observe rapid structural realignment, reduction of inflammation, and other benefits.

Reiki masters who have taken my workshops have nicknamed Quantum-Touch, “Reiki empowerment” or “turbo charging the Reiki.” I got a laugh when one of my students wrote in the review of my workshop that Quantum-Touch was “like Reiki on steroids.” Both systems use the same life-forced energy. The Quantum-Touch practitioner learns to focus the energy like a laser, which takes concentration, body awareness and breath.

I am a Reiki Master and have had success with Reiki, but have found Quantum Touch to be very powerful and show results much more quickly. I have worked on two women who can feel the energy as it flows through their bodies. Their response has been that Reiki comes from without and Quantum Touch comes from within. I can feel the energy field surrounding people and can say from direct experience that Quantum Touch (especially after the Supercharging workshop) expands the individuals energy field at least tenfold, which would help account for the breakthroughs in health.

CHAKRAS

Chakras are our energy centers. They are the openings for life energy to flow into and out of our aura. Their function is to vitalize the physical body and to bring about the development of our self-consciousness. They are associated with our physical, mental and emotional interactions. There are seven major chakras. The aura is often referred to as the eighth chakra. The first chakra (root) actually hangs outside of your body. It is located between your thighs, about halfway between your knees and your physical body. The seven chakra (crown) is located on the top of your head. The remaining chakras, (sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, and third eye), are aligned in sequence along your spine, neck, and skull. Individually, your chakras look similar to funnels with petal-like openings.

Chakras are invisible to the human eye, but they can be perceived intuitively by trained energyworkers.

Evaluating the Health of Your Chakras

Having your chakras evaluated by a trained practitioner is a good way to get a better understanding of how your body functions on an energetic level. An energyworker trained in reading chakras will be able to tell you which chakras are functioning poorly and which chakras are working overtime. When one or two chakras are performing at a reduced level, the remaining chakras have to pick up the slack. Having a non-functioning chakra can effectively “blow out” an otherwise healthy chakra. Not good.

Keeping Your Chakras in Proper Alignment

When your back or hip gets out of alignment you will make a trip to the chiropractor’s office for a spinal adjustment. Similarly, a healer trained in manipulating the energy flow of energy can assist you in getting misaligned chakras back to functioning properly. It may take one or more appointments with a practitioner to get your energy levels up to par. Afterwards, there are a variety of healthy actions you can take to help keep them open, allowing your energy to flow naturally.

REIKI

Reiki (pronounced Ray Key) is a combination of two Japanese words rei and ki meaning universal life energy. Reiki is an ancient laying-on of hands healing technique that uses the life force energy to heal, balancing the subtle energies within our bodies. Reiki addresses physical, emotional, mental and spiritual imbalances. This healing art is an effective delivery system. The Reiki practitioner serves as a vessel that supplies healing energies where they are most needed. Reiki’s ki-energies flow out of the practitioner’s body through the palms of the hands while they are touching the recipient’s body.

What to Expect During a Reiki Treatment

You will be asked to lay down on a massage table, couch, or bed.

You will be fully clothed except for your shoes. You may also be asked to remove or loosen your belt so that your breathing is not restricted in any way. It is best to choose loose-fitting garments to wear on the day of your appointment. Wearing natural fabrics is best (cotton, wool, or linen). You may also be asked to remove any jewelry (rings, braceletes, pendants, etc.) prior to the session, so consider leaving these items at home.

Relaxing Atmosphere

Reiki practitioners will often create a relaxing atmosphere for their Reiki sessions, setting the mood with the use of dimmed lights, meditative music, or bubbling water fountains. Some practitioners prefer to be in a place that is completely silent, without distraction of music of any kind, to conduct their Reiki sessions in.

Healing Touch

The Reiki practitioner will place his hands lightly on different parts of your body. Some practitioners will follow a predetermined sequence of hand placements, allowing their hands to rest on each body placement for 2 to 5 minutes before moving on to the next. Empathic practitioners will freely move their hands in no particular order to the areas where they “feel” Reiki is most needed. Some Reiki practitioners do not touch their clients. They will hover their lifted palms a few inches above the reclined body. Either way, Reiki energies flow where they are suppose to. Reiki is a smart energy that automatically flows where the imbalances are in your body regardless of where the practitioner’s hands are placed.

Phantom Hands

Because Reiki energies flow to where they are most needed there is a Reiki phenomenon called “phantom hands” that you may or may not experience. Phantom hands feel as if the Reiki practitioner’s hands are touching one part of your body when they are actually elsewhere. For example, you may be able to see that the healer’s hands are actually placed on your stomach, but you could swear that hands are touching your legs. Or, you may feel as if several pairs of hands are on your body at the same time as if several people are in the room with you.

Becoming a Reiki Practitioner

Reiki is traditionally taught in three levels. Levels I and II are typically taught in one day class (8 hours) or over a weekend period (16 hours). Level III is generally a more intensive course of study and will take a longer commitment. Class time involves an initiation ritual called an attunement and learning the hand placements for self treatments as well as treating others.

Reiki Controversies and Myths

The healing community has come a long way in demystifying the cloak of secrecy that once surrounded the teaching of Reiki in the western hemisphere. As a result, inaccuracies that were born out of the teaching being hidden away have been chipped away layer by layer. However, some of these Reiki Myths continue to grow organically.

Reiki was first introduced to Canada and the United States in the 1970s. Hawayo Takata, a Hawaii native of Japanese descent, brought her knowledge of Reiki to the mainland through oral teachings. Reiki teachings and stories were passed down from teacher to student by word of mouth for several years. No wonder the stories got jumbled up!

TANTRIC GLOSSARY

February 27, 2013

TANTRIC TERMINOLOGY:

Acupressure Points. The junctures of energy pathways in the body. Holding acupressure points for more than a minute or so causes the body to release neurochemicals called endorphins. The release of endorphins can create a euphoric “natural high” and encourage relaxation as well as magnetism and intimacy.Ananda. Divine bliss; joy; spiritual ecstasy.Asana. Yoga posture. Used to positively influence the energies of body and mind.

A-U-M. The three sounds which compose the root mantra, om. The sound-values of om and their symbolic interpretation are described in the Upanishads: “”A” as the waking consciousness, “U” as the dream-consciousness and “M” as the consciousness during deep sleep. Om as a whole represents the all-encompassing cosmic consciousness.”

Aura. The subtle field of energy generated by the various life energies in the body.

Ayurveda. “Science of life.” Ayurveda is the traditional system of medicine of India, which dates back thousands of years. The Sanskrit root ayu means “life,” and veda means “pure knowledge.”

Bandhas. Internal muscular exercises designed to strengthen the PC muscles and to direct and intensify sexual energy. Bandha exercises can greatly increase sexual pleasure and aid in ejaculatory control.

Bija Mantra. A Tantric technique for awakening, purifying, and activating the chakras. Bija means “seed,” and the bijas used in this mantra are the core sounds that pertain to the seven chakras.

Bodhisattva. “One whose essence is enlightenment.” Bodhi is the Sanskrit word for “enlightenment” and sattva means “essence.” A divine being who remains on the human plane to help others.

Brahma. “The Creator.” In Hindu mythology, Brahma is the senior member of the triad of the great Gods Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. In Tantric cosmology, Brahma is the creator of the world and is the embodiment of all creativity.

Chakras. Centers of consciousness and psychic energy in the body. The word chakra means “wheel” in Sanskrit. There are many chakras in the body, including seven main chakras situated along the central channel of the body, along the spine.

Chi (Qi). Chi is the Chinese word for the flows of subtle energy in the body that move along pathways called meridians. A clear flow of energy through the meridians is the key to radiant health, eroticism, and intimacy.

Chi Kung (or Qi-Gong). Literally means “breath work.” It is a system of movement, meditation, and breathing that can unblock, align, and purify the body”s energy so that the entire being – body, mind, and spirit – can function more harmoniously.

Durga. “She who is difficult to go against.” Durga represents the triumphant aspect of Shakti, the cosmic energy of destruction, particularly the removal of the ego which stands in the way of spiritual growth and ultimate liberation. The Goddess Durga evokes strength, health, and purity.

Feng Shui. Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese science of arranging objects and surroundings in the best possible way to balance sacred energy and attract toward us all the benevolent forces of the cosmos.

Ganesha. The elephant-headed God, son of Parvati and Shiva. Ganesha is the remover of all obstacles – physical, emotional, and psychic. He is invoked at the start of any new undertaking.

Hatha Yoga. Hatha means “force” and represents the union of two words – ha, “sun,” and tha, “moon.” Hatha yoga is the ancient Indian system of physical postures and breathing exercises that balances the opposing masculine and feminine forces in the body, the “sun” and the “moon.”

Ida. One of the three principal channels of the subtle body. It is the (female, lunar) nadi going about the central sushumna nadi, terminating in the left nostril. Opposite in polarity from the pinga.

Kali. “Dark one.” The aspect of Divine Mother that fights evil and destroys the ego.

Kali Yuga. “Age of Darkness.” The era of “spiritual decline” that is still in progress today. Described in Vedic scripture as a period “when society reaches a stage where property confers rank, wealth becomes the only source of virtue. . . falsehood the source of success in life. . . and when outer trappings are confused with inner religion.” Tantra is a set of teachings intended for this particular age.

Karma. “The law of cause and effect.” The accumulated effect of past deeds and actions.

Krishna. One of the many incarnations of Vishnu whose teaching is featured in the Bhagava Gita. Often depicted playing his flute, he embodies divine joy, love, playfulness, and male eroticism. Krishna’s death inaugurated the Kali Yuga, which is still in full swing today.

Kundalini. “She who is coiled.” Refers to the powerful creative sexual energy coiled like a sleeping serpent near the base of the spine. One of the goals in Tantra is to gently awaken this dormant energy in order to awaken consciousness and attain enlightenment.

Kwan Yin (Quan Yin). The Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion. Kwan means “to perceive” and yin means “the sound of the world”: “She who hears the suffering of the world.” The energy of Kwan Yin is gentle and peaceful. She was known as a great healer and the female energy counterpart of Buddha.

Lakshmi. “Good Fortune.” The Goddess of abundance, wealth, and beauty. The female counterpart of the god Vishnu.

Laya Yoga. The path of meditation and subtle energy work. A form of yoga intended to awaken and channel kundalini energy (also known as Kundalini Yoga). Laya Yoga can be understood as the higher, meditative phase of Hatha Yoga. Laya Yoga and Hatha Yoga together are subsumed under Tantra Yoga.

Lingam. Sanskrit for the male sexual organ meaning “wand of light.” The symbol of Shiva.

Lotus Flower. In Tantric art, the lotus is a symbol of purity, self-transcendence, and expanding consciousness. Because of its smooth and oily surface the lotus is not sullied by the mud and water in which it grows. It is also a Tantric term for the Yoni.

Maithuna. Sanskrit word for sexual union. The ceremonial union of Shiva with Shakti. A Tantric rite aimed at raising the kundalini through physical love.

Mandala. “Mystic circle.” A mandala is considered sacred geometry and is used as a tool for Tantric meditation.

Mantra. An audible and sacredly empowered pattern of rhythm and words. A mantra is a spiritual formula, a combination of sacred syllables transmitted from age to age in a religious tradition that forms a nucleus of spiritual power. Om Shakti, for example, is a popular Hindu mantra and means “praise energy.”

Metta. In Buddhism, the Pali word for “lovingkindness.” The practice of metta was first taught by the Buddha himself two thousand five hundred years ago as a supremely rich and powerful way of cultivating a generous heart. “Without a generous heart,” the Buddha said, “there can be no true spiritual life.”

Nadi. “River.” Invisible channels of psychic energy, woven throughout the subtle body. Conduits of prana. Yogic texts state there are 72,000 of them. Together with the chakras, the nadis constitute the composition of the subtle body in Tantra.

Namaste. The traditional Indian form of salutation, a respectful greeting recognizing the equality of all and the sacredness of all. “The God/Goddess in me greets the God/Goddess in you.” The gesture (mudra) of namaste is made by bringing together both palms of the hands before the heart.

Nataraj. Nataraj is the dancing form of Lord Shiva. This famous icon of Hinduism depicts Shiva in his “unending dance of destruction/creation,” while trampling down “the demon of ego that hinders our progress to enlightenment.”

Nyasa. “Placing.” A ritual form of touch to awaken the chakras and the energy conduits of the body.

OM. Seed mantra composed of three sounds, a-u-m, embracing within it the “sound” of our own inmost divine consciousness, the “sound” of all of creation, and the “sound” of the Supreme Being creating reality.

Parvati. “The one born of the mountain (Himalaya).” Consort of Shiva. Parvati represents not only physical but spiritual beauty.

Pingala. One of the three principal channels of the subtle body. It is the (male, solar) nadi opposite the ida nadi. It spirals around the central sushumna channel and terminates in the right nostril. It has a positive polarity.

Puja. Worship or celebration. There are different kinds of pujas that include many forms of ceremonial worship. In modern Tantric practice, there are community or group pujas, a transformational ritual gathering which awakens and brings forth the priest/priestess, the shaman, and the god-essence in each of us. It is an opportunity for the renewal of body, mind, and spirit.

Raja Yoga. “Royal yoga.” Emphasizes the mental and spiritual rather than physical. Its aim is to make one a “ruler” over all one’s mental and spiritual equipment, the general aim of all Tantric schools.

Red Tantra. The aspect of Tantra that relates to the mastery of sexual skills.

Sacred Space. A sacred space is a place of tranquility created through intention, respect and focus. It is about cultivating an environment that is filled with energies that support, uplift, comfort, and transform our inner and outer awareness and benefits our highest good.

Sacred Spot. An energetic pole for sexual fulfillment. In a woman it is the energetic access to the second chakra located on or around the G spot in the Yoni. In a man it is located at the root of the second chakra located within the upper wall of the base chakra.

Saraswati. “She who flows.” The Goddess of arts and learning and patroness of the “Sixty-four Arts.” Saraswati is the feminine energy counterpart of Brahma. She is typically portrayed holding a lute (vina).

Shakti. Shakti means power, force, and feminine energy. The word shakti is derived from the Sanskrit root shak, meaning “potency” or “the potential to produce.” She represents “the fundamental creative instinct underlying the cosmos, and is the energizing force of all divinity, of every being, and every thing.” The Goddess Shakti is the feminine counterpart to each of the Gods of the Hindu pantheon, especially of Shiva.

Shiva. The male divine symbol of the transcendental. Shiva stands for growth and transformation. In Tantra, Shiva represents pure consciousness manifesting in the creative union with his consort Shakti.

Subtle Body. A field of force, with energy vortexes at the psychic centers (chakras).

Sushumna. The principal nadi of the subtle body located in the spinal column. This psychic channel controls spiritual evolution and is the “highway” that connects this world with the next.

Tai Chi. A spiritual and physical discipline, developed in China over millennia to bring balance to the body and flowing peace to the mind.

Tantra. A spiritual path, originating in India, that embraces sexual energy as a way of achieving conscious awakening and enlightenment.

Tantrika. A practitioner of Tantra.

Tara. One of the most popular of the Buddhist Goddesses who is adored for her protection from evil and her support in overcoming obstacles. Her name is derived from the verb tara, meaning “to cross,” for she enables the devotee to “cross the ocean of existence.” Tara is the symbol of tranquility and cosmic peace.

Vajra. A Tibetan term for the male sexual organ meaning “thunderbolt” or “scepter of power.”

Vedic. Ancient Indian/Hindu philosophy and science with a holistic approach. The Vedic period is dated c. 2500-500 b.c.e. The Vedas are considered to be the oldest extant scriptures in the world.

Vishnu. “The Preserver.” The aspect of Brahma known as the protector of all humanity.

Yab-Yum. Seated astride position. An asana in which a woman sits astride facing herpartner, heart-to-heart. TheTantric image of yab-yum represents the male principle uniting in perfect balance with the female principle, creating an image expressing the sacredness of sexuality as a spiritual path to enlightenment.

Yantra. A geometric diagram, usually of interlocking triangles and circles, used as a focus for healing meditation. The Sanskrit word yantra derives from the root yam meaning “to sustain,” or “hold.” In metaphysical terms a yantra is visualized as a “receptacle” of the highest spiritual essence.

Yin and Yang. Yin and Yang are complementary and interdependent aspects of a single unifying force. The Yin force is seen as cool, lunar, passive, receptive, feminine, and internal. The Yang force is warm, solar, active, productive, masculine, and external. Each is relative to the other and both contain a small amount of the other. These opposite forces interact in order to create balance. This is seen in the yin/yang symbol, illustrating the light within the dark and the dark within the light.

Yoga. Yoga is a term for spiritual discipline and derives from the Sanskrit yuj, which means, among other things, to “yoke,” “to join together,” “union and communion.” Yoga is a holistic way of relating to the body that involves an increasing awareness on all levels: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. The basic philosophy of yoga acknowledges the presence of divine energy in all people, all place, and all things.

TANTRA is a path …

February 27, 2013

Tantra is a path for integrating body, mind and soul. It differs from other paths in its honoring of the body, using the senses, sexuality, and feelings to help you evolve spiritually. Tantra assists you in realizing your full potential as a human being. If you choose to live from the Tantric perspective, you will transform your life. You will discover bliss. You may apply Tantric practices and principles to many areas of life – to relationship and sexual loving, spiritual practice and lifestyle, physical and emotional well-being.

The practices and rituals of Tantra, both spiritual and sexual, work to create the conditions necessary for love to flourish and endure. When we achieve states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection, love emerges and opens the heart. To bring about the conditions that generate and sustain love, we can learn to rely upon Tantric practices to create more of these positive energy states. Tantra, therefore, is not just something to do in our bedrooms, but rather a complete way of life.

As a Tantrika, I follow regular practices to quiet my mind, open my awareness to sensation, raise my energy vibration, and cultivate a sacred attitude towards myself, others, and events in my life. As part of my practice, each day I create a time to connect with my body and spirit. I use the Ipsalu Tantra method to attune to my inherent Bliss vibration: I awaken my body, still my mind, arouse my shakti energy, draw that orgasmic lifeforce into my higher chakras, and enjoy a meditation where I connect with what is present and what I want to create in my life. By the end of my practice my body is buzzing with blissful vibration. I feel spacious, centered, grounded, and ready to bring my vibrant energy with me out into my day.

Cultivating states of presence, energy flow, relaxation, harmony, and connection is not always easy. A lifetime of hurts and other negative experiences have gradually limited our ability to be present and to express the essence of who we really are, fully and freely. We slowly become cut off from our feelings and the ability to experience our sexual creative energy in a connected, joyful, loving way.

In a subtle, gentle, yet powerful way, Tantric loving brings healing. It breaks up and washes away residues of our past that hold us back from limitless love and intimacy. Tantra teaches us not only how to be great lovers, but how to be great healers for one another as well.

Tantra represents a unique paradigm for conscious living and loving. It offers a passionate and expansive way of life for those seeking to connect with their sexuality in a positive, heart-centered way, a way that celebrates freedom of spirit and body alike.

Origins of Tantra

Tantra is a set of spiritual teachings and a unique paradigm for relating to one’s self and the universe that originated in India well over 2000 years ago. It is still relevant today.

It originated in ancient Vedic times, in matriarchal cultures such as that of the Indus Valley, and in practices revolving around the worship of the Goddess.

The essence of Tantra has taken many forms of expression and appears in virtually every culture in history, e.g., Chinese Taoist Tantra, Native American Quodoshka.

Tantra is a timeless phenomenon as well as a global one. Even today in the West it satisfies many of our most essential needs: love, connection, intimacy, play, harmony and balance, inspiration, relaxation, celebration, physical and emotional well-being, sexual and spiritual fulfillment.

The Word Tantra

Tantra comes from the ancient Sanskrit words tanoti which means “to expand” and trayati which means “liberation.” This implies that you can be liberated by expanding your consciousness.

Another definition of the word Tantra is “web” or “to weave.” Tantra is an interweaving of the energies of many levels of consciousness from the mundane, to the most erotic, to the most profound.

White Tantra or Tantra of the Right Hand (Dakshina Marga) involves the meditative techniques of Tantra and is essentially a celibate, ascetic path.

Red Tantra or Tantra of the Left Hand (Vama Marga) involves the use of elements that were considered taboo, such as the ritual of sexual union (maithuna), as a means of attaining liberation. Here, sexual union is used as means for going beyond into transcendent states of consciousness.

“Pink” Tantra strikes the middle ground between the two paths, harmoniously joining the practical and esoteric elements of both orientations. The instruction and training I offer falls into this category.

My focus is on the heart energy using tantric techniques for attaining self-knowledge, spiritual evolution, and self-realization. The work has incredible value for single people and couples alike.

The interrelated notions of the Goddess, Kundalini, the Subtle Body, and the Chakra System are central to Tantra and its aims.

The Goddess

The Goddess is revered in tantra.

In ancient times, The Goddess was worshiped as the embodiment of eroticism and the source of all creation. Every woman was seen as Shakti – The Goddess incarnate. Each woman is a Shakti. Shakti is the Hindu Goddess, or archetype, of the divine feminine.

Shakti also refers to a particular quality of energy that is feminine and rises upwards in the body, such as earth energy or sexual energy. It was worshipped in ancient India as the primal energy that created the cosmos. Shakti, or sexual energy, is creative life-force energy.

Re-awakening the Goddess is central to modern Tantra. Although both the masculine and the feminine energies are equally important, the extra focus on the feminine is necessary in order to counterbalance the predominant masculine energy of our present culture. Daily life in this busy world does not encourage women or men to recognize or acknowledge the Goddess, but rekindling a woman’s sexual energy brings forth her Goddess nature. Tantric practices allow the Goddess in every woman to emerge. Both the woman and her partner benefit. The free flow of a woman’s sexual energy activates her shakti, creating an atmosphere for spiritual enlightenment. Her pleasure and desire for lovemaking will increase and may even surpass the pleasure potential and sexual desire of the man.

Kundalini

The main purpose of the tantric path is to activate Kundalini energy in the body. Those who achieve this awakening live in an ongoing state of bliss.

Kundalini is the most powerful and refined energetic force available to us as human beings.

The term means “she who is coiled” and is traditionally depicted as a serpent, coiled and sleeping at the base of the spine. When awakened, it begins to uncoil as it climbs up through the chakras to the crown. For thousands of years, the serpent has been used in many cultures to symbolize rising consciousness.

A minimal flow of Kundalini exists in everyone already. It is the energy that animates the body and the physical senses and provides a base level of consciousness. As the flow increases, we begin to access higher realms of consciousness into the spiritual dimensions.

Kundalini is activated by the energy of Shakti, or sexual energy. Shakti is generated through conscious lovemaking or specific yogic techniques designed to activate this energy. The tantric path sees sexual energy as an important expression of Kundalini.

A full Kundalini awakening occurs only when a perfect balance of masculine and feminine exists in the body. Maintaining a balance between these energies is the essence of tantric practice.

For a more in-depth discussion of Kundalini and how it works, refer to the excellent chapter on the subject in Bodhi Avinasha’s The Ipsalu Formula: A Method for Tantra Bliss or Swami Satyananda Saraswati’s complete book Kundalini Tantra.

The Subtle Body

Since Tantric practices directly influence the energy of the subtle body, a basic understanding of esoteric anatomy is useful.

The Western view of anatomy encompasses systems of the body that we can see: the skeletal system, muscular system, nervous system, etc. Eastern medicine (i.e. Ayurveda, Chinese medicine) teaches that a subtle body also pervades our anatomy.

The most important aspect of the subtle body is the system of energy centers, known as chakras. The subtle body also contains several hundred thousand energy channels, called nadis. There are three principle subtle channels, the sushumna (central), the ida (left channel) and pingala (right channel). The subtle body is also called the energy body.

If you have ever done yoga or received acupuncture, you have already experienced the awakening of your subtle body.

As kundalini awakens, it rises up through the sushumna, moving through the main chakras of the subtle body. If there are energy blocks along this central energy “highway” the kundalini will not ascend through all of the chakras.
A heightened awareness of your energy body translates to intensified levels of sensation and pleasure. When your energy body is awake, even the slightest touch may arouse great bliss. I can teach you how to awaken the energy body of your beloved, inspiring in him or her unknown delights!

The Chakra System

The chakras are concentrated vortices of energy within the subtle body, centers of consciousness. They are way-stations along the upward path of the Kundalini. Our bodies actually have many chakras, both big (e.g. at the crown of the head) and small (e.g. at the pads of our fingers). “The chakras” refer to the seven main chakras “situated” along the axis of the spine. All the chakras have the potential to become powerful erogenous zones!

Although we cannot see or feel the chakras with our physical senses, they are evident in the shape of our physical bodies and in the way we think, feel, and handle life’s situations.

Sometimes these energy centers become clogged or blocked due to negative experiences, physical pain, emotional traumas, social programming, cultural conditioning, limiting belief systems, or adverse life conditions. Blocks result in an incomplete or unbalanced experience of life and limit the expression of our own true life force energy. If you have ever experienced a “knot in your throat,” for example, due to holding back tearful emotional expression, then you have experienced a block in the 5th chakra. This block acts as a limit, restricting the full expression of your inner world to the outer. Can you recall a time when you have experienced a “heavy heart,” a block in the 4th chakra? Grief, resulting from hurts to the heart, blocks the heart’s natural lightness and expansiveness; the heart becomes heavy and closed. A heavy heart prevents us from engaging in nourishing, loving relationships, and our life may feel incomplete as a result.
Awakening and opening all of our chakras allow us to express ourselves as unique, whole, and fully-realized individuals.

Tantric practice provides means to fully awaken and open the chakras, with particular emphasis on the second, fourth chakras and sixth chakras (sex, heart, and spirit), integral to our experience as expansive, joyful beings.

WHITE TANTRA HEALING

I founded WHITE TANTRA HEALING to be a unique approach within the variety of Tantric paths. Faithful to ancient Tantra’s original purposes and researched techniques, it is an adapted system to meet the interests of people in the western world at the present evolutionary level. White Tantra Healing is both a profound and playful way for learning to live in bliss. What distinguishes White Tantra Healing is the focus on realizing your true Self, attention to emotional flow, and the skillfully designed sets of yogic techniques for safely activating your kundalini (most powerful and creative) energy.

By freeing and integrating ego desires, you realize your bliss body. Frustration, separation, boredom and fear melt away for they are simply clouds over the magnificence that is present inside you. The union of sex, love and pure awareness within your body, with a beloved, in each moment, with everyone, with all of existence is indescribable joy. It is the essence of your nature.

What is a “Dakini” ?

February 19, 2010

In the Tibetan language the Sanskrit term DAKINI is rendered Khandroma (mkha’-‘gro-ma) meaning “she who traverses the sky” or “she who moves in space”; this is sometimes rendered poetically as “sky dancer” or “sky walker”. Ichnographically, their bodies are depicted curved in sinuous dance poses. They dance as they are active manifestations of energy or shakti. dakini (Sanskrit: “sky dancer”) is a Tantric priestess of ancient India who “carried the souls of the dead to the sky”. This Buddhist figure is particularly upheld in Tibetan Buddhism. The dakini is a female being of generally volatile temperament, who acts as a muse for spiritual practice. Dakinis can be likened to elves, angels, or other such supernatural beings, and are symbolically representative of testing one’s awareness and adherence to Buddhist tantric sadhana.According to legend, members of the Indian royal castes and the wealthy nobility brought their deceased to the far North to visit the Shrine of the Dakini (located at the foothills of the Himalaya). Other legends mention a Tibetan myth which says dakini first appeared in a remote area “pure of man”. Dakinis are timeless, inorganic, immortal, non-human beings who have co-existed since the very beginning with the Spiritual Energy. In some New Age belief systems, they are angelic. This New Age paradigm differs from that of the Judeo-Christian by not insisting on angels being bona fide servants of God.

Moreover, an angel is the Western equivalent of a dakini. The behavior of dakini has always been revelatory and mysterious; they respond to the state of spiritual energy within individuals. Love is their usual domain – one explanation for dakini or angels supposedly living in the sky or heaven. Manifestations of dakini in human form occur because they supposedly can assume any form. Most often they appear as a human female. By convention, a male of this type is called a ‘daka’. In Tibetan Buddhism and other schools closely related to Yogacara and Vajrayana practices, a dakini is considered a supernatural being who tests a practitioner’s abilities and commitments.

When the dakini’s test has been fulfilled and passed, the practitioner is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha, and often is elevated into the Paradise of the Dakinis, a place of enlightened bliss. It should be noted that while dakinis are often depicted as beautiful and naked, they are not sexual symbols, but rather natural ones. There are instances where a dakini has come to test a practitioner’s control over their sexual desires, but the dakini itself is not a being of passion. Tantric sex may involve a “helper” dakini – a human female trained in Tantra Yoga – or an “actual” dakini. Both increase the level of erotic pleasure for the sexual participants by helping them focus on a non-physical state of spiritual joy and the physical pleasure of sex at the same time.

Dakini is the Goddess of Life’s Turning Points. Distillations of archetypal emanations, the Dakinis represent those essence principles within the self which are capable of transformation to a higher octave. Dakinis are ‘sky dancers,’ heavenly angels devoted to the truth (dharma), woman consorts of and partners with the god-creators of India and Tibet. Dakini serves as instigator, inspirer, messenger, pushing the tantrika (aspirant) across the barriers to enlightenment. Dakini’s wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls. Her peaceful aspect is depicted by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation. Dakini represent the sky being a womb symbol connoting emptiness, creativity, potentiality. They are objects of desire and also carriers of the cosmic energies that continually fertilize our human sphere. Dakinis bring us pleasure and spirituality. They provoke the enervating lust that brings life into being. They are poetic and cosmic souls, put here to tempt us to spirituality.

Dakinis are questing and testing agents. There are instances where a dakini has come to test an aspirant’s control over his or her sexual desires, but the dakini should not themselves be construed as beings of passion and sexuality. When the dakini’s test has been fulfilled and passed, the aspirant is often then recognized as a Mahasiddha and often elevated into the Dakini Paradise, a place of enlightened bliss.

So I share all of this in-depth knowledge of the technical meaning of a dakini because most people who come across Tantra think of the dakini’s role as a sexual equal, a sexual replacement of sorts. In truth, the dakini’s role is specifically as a guide to getting you understanding of your path to love through God. She is solely responsible for your own enlightenment and the path to true ecstasy in recognizing the divinity of love (and all of love’s powers) versus the superficial manifestation of love in lust.